MODERN   DEVELOPMENTS    IN 
EDUCATIONAL   PRACTICE 


MODERN  DEVELOPMENTS  IN 
EDUCATIONAL   PRACTICE 


BY 


JOHN    ADAMS,    M.A.,    B.Sc,    LL.D. 

SOMETIME    UNIVERSITY    PROFESSOR    OF    EDUCATION 
IN    THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    LONDON 


NEW  YORK 
HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 

{Printed  in  Great  Britain) 


A 


b^ 


^> 


PRINTED    IN    GREAT    BRITAIN    FOR    THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    LONDON    PRESS,    LTD. 
BY   HAZELL,    WATSON    &    VINEY,    LD.,    LONDON    AND    AYLESBURY. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

rxoB 

What  underlies  the  New  Teaching         .        i 


CHAPTER    II 

The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  .      24 

CHAPTER    III 
Standards  and  Mental  Tests  ...      60 

CHAPTER    IV 
Scales  of  Attainment       ....      92 

CHAPTER   V 
The  Psychology  of  the  Class     .     .         .113 

CHAPTER   VI 
The  Knell  of  Class-teaching  .         .         .     136 


506b  . :  j 


vi  Contents 


CHAPTER  VII 

PAGE 

The  Dalton  Plan 162 


CHAPTER   VIII 
The  Gary  Contribution    .         .         .         .185 

CHAPTER    IX 
The  Play  Way 205 

CHAPTER   X 
The  Project  Method,       ....     227 


CHAPTER    XI 

Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

• 

•     249 

CHAPTER    XII 

Free  Discipline 

• 

.     277 

%. 

J 

Index        

.       207 

CHAPTER    I 
WHAT  UNDERLIES  THE  NEW  TEACHING 

IN  his  book  on  America's  Coming  of  Age  Mr. 
Van  Wyck  Brooks  tells  us  that  on  his  side  of 
the  Atlantic  "  the  recognised  way  of  pinning  down 
something  that  is  felt  to  be  in  the  air  is  to  adopt 
some  cast-off  phrase  and  tack  the  word  '  New  ' 
before  it.'1  But  America  has  no  monopoly  of  the 
device.  On  this  side  we  have  always  had  the  New 
Art :  lately  we  added  the  New  Theology,  the  New 
Nationalism,  the  New  Psychology — and  now  we 
have  the  New  Education,  with  its  variant  the  New 
Teaching,  not  to  speak  of  the  New  Children.1 

The  reader's  first  reaction  to  the  much-used 
adjective  is  one  of  opposition.  He  declines  to  admit 
that  these  things  are  really  new.  Critics  cannot 
resist  the  temptation  to  quote  a  tiiesomely  familiar 
saying  of  a  French  cynic  that  the  more  such  things 
change  the  more  they  are  the  same.  In  teaching, 
for  example,  no  sooner  does  one  suggest  a  method 
as  something  specially  fresh  than  a  resurrectionist 
expert  is  at  hand  to  dig  up  from  the  history  of 
education  some  hoary  example  of  the  same  thing. 
It  is  certainly  galling  for  the  progressive  teacher  to 

1  Witness  Mrs.  Radice's  interesting  book  with  that 
title. 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 


find  in  the  books  and  speeches  of  inspired  amateurs 
certain  familiar  methods  described  as  startling  and 
valuable  novelties.  Mr.  F.  R.  Cholmeley,  for 
instance,  is  indignant  that  in  the  reviews  of  Messrs. 
Beresford  and  Richmond's  book  entitled  W.  E.  Ford 
the  critics  appear  to  take  it  for  granted  that  nothing 
has  been  improved  in  education  during  the  past 
thirty  years.  He  has  no  objection  to  people  talking 
of  "  Ford's  Method  "  if  they  want  to,  but  he  would 
like  them  to  remember  that  this  method  is,  in  fact, 
"  part  of  the  regular  stock-in-trade  of  every  place 
where  teachers  are  taught,  and  of  a  large  and 
increasing  proportion  of  the  places  where  they 
teach."  It  is  hardly  surprising,  therefore,  to  find 
him  telling  us  that  to  see  the  Ford  methods  treated  as 
if  they  were  new  discoveries  "  is  a  little  depressing." 
Let  it  be  admitted  that  we  are  at  all  times  liable 
to  fall  into  the  fallacy  that  has  aroused  Mr.  Chol- 
meley's  just  indignation.  It  seems  inherent  in 
human  beings  to  regard  their  own  period  as  one  of 
notable  change.  We  are  continually  telling  each 
other  that  this  is  a  critical  time,  that  we  are  at  the 
parting  of  the  ways,  that  vital  issues  lie  in  our 
hands  at  the  present  moment.  Heraclitus  is 
justified  of  his  theory.  Without  question  we  live 
in  an  age  of  flux.  Men  always  have.  It  is  natural, 
since  it  is  inevitable,  that  we  should  be  making  a 
choice  all  the  time,  and  in  sober  earnest  we  stand 
at  every  moment  of  our  lives  at  what  may  be  called 
the  parting  of  the  ways.  No  doubt  there  are 
partings  that  are  of  more  importance  than  others, 
and  it  is  man's  nature  to  regard  the  present  moment's 
decision  as  more  than  usually  important.     When 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching     3 

all  has  been  said,  however,  it  will  be  found  to  be  a 
safe  proposition  that  it  is  extremely  difficult  at  a 
given  moment  in  the  development  of  any  movement 
to  determine  whether  we  are  or  are  not  at  a  crucial 
point. 

All  this  is  set  forth  in  order  that  the  reader  may 
realise  that  it  is  with  full  knowledge  of  human 
frailty,  and  not  without  an  appreciation  of  the 
humour  of  the  situation,  that  it  is  here  maintained 
that  we  have  reached  a  critical  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  educational  theory  and  practice.  After 
what  has  just  been  written  it  would  probably  be 
inadvisable  to  say  that  we  are  at  the  parting  of  the 
ways,  but  it  may  perhaps  be  permitted  to  say  that 
we  have  reached  a  meeting  of  the  ways,  a  point 
where  many  influences  join.  The  Converging  Paths 
about  which  Professor  Campagnac  writes  have  led 
people  to  a  position  of  open-minded  enquiry  accom- 
panied by  a  willingness  to  take  whatever  practical 
steps  may  seem  to  be  necessary  to  improve  the 
educational  situation. 

When  all  allowance  has  been  made  for  the 
relativity  of  newness,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
each  generation  has  its  characteristic  way  of  regard- 
ing all  problems — education  among  the  rest.  The 
very  fact  that  people  are  talking  about  the  New 
Teaching  implies  that  there  is  something  that  marks 
off  our  present-day  teaching  in  some  way  or  other 
from  that  of  former  times.  At  the  very  least,  we 
have  a  new  way  of  being  novel  in  our  methods. 
Just  as  each  age  has  to  have  a  new  translation  of  a 
great  classic  if  that  classic  is  to  be  properly  under- 
stood, so  each  age  that  is  interested  in  education 


4      What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 

at  all  has  to  be  interested  after  its  own  fashion. 
That  there  is  a  new  spirit  in  our  educational  affairs 
to-day  is  evident  even  to  the  most  superficial 
observers.  We  in  England  are  not  temperamentally 
inclined  to  be  drawn  aside  after  the  strange  gods 
of  mere  novelty  in  education.  If  we  are  interested 
in  education  at  all,  it  is  enough  of  a  portent  without 
our  asking  for  something  more  wonderful.  Yet  we 
have  only  to  open  our  eyes  to  find  examples  of  all 
manner  of  movements  and  plans  and  projects 
demanding  and  receiving  the  attention  of  school 
people.  No  teacher  of  spirit  can  fail  to  be  stimulated 
by  merely  turning  over  the  pages  of  Mr.  Ernest 
Young's  The  New  Era  in  Education,  and  even  the 
layman  will  find  there  cause  for  serious  reflection. 
It  is  true  that  the  cautious  and  reactionary  teacher 
or  administrator  who  can  be  induced  to  dip  into 
the  book,  will  look  up  with  a  woeful  shake  of  the 
head,  indicating  the  uneasy  feeling  within  that 
education  is  getting  into  the  hands  of  cranks,  and 
that  the  whole  of  the  stable  and  well-tried  methods 
are  in  danger.  Let  all  such  anxious  minds  be  at 
rest.  There  is  not  the  slightest  danger  of  our 
schools  going  to  excess  through  new  ideas.  The 
danger  is  all  in  the  other  direction.  Consider  for  a 
moment  the  world  of  contempt  that  the  average 
professional  teacher  can  throw  into  the  phrase 
"  freak  schools  !  "  Note  the  turn  up  of  the  nose 
at  the  mere  mention  of  the  Dalton  Plan,  the  Project 
Method,  the  Play  Way. 

Yet  there  is  comfort  in  the  frequency  with  which 
the  professional  nose  has  to  be  turned  up  in  these 
latter  days.     The  persistent  growls  from  many  a 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching      5 

conventional  common-room  are  extremely  hopeful 
signs  of  the  times.  It  is  well  that  Mr.  Young  should 
be  able  to  provide  such  abundant  material  for  the 
censure  of  the  severely  orthodox.  It  is  much  that 
such  an  array  of  actual  experiments  can  now  be 
presented  for  criticism  and  verification,  but  it  is 
more  to  realise  that  these  are  merely  the  efflorescence 
of  a  growing  spirit  of  enquiry  that  is  only  now 
coming  to  its  own.  For  every  new  method  in 
actual  practice  there  are  scores  in  theory,  all 
clamouring  in  the  educational  press  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  express  themselves  in  action,  and  get 
themselves  put  to  the  test  of  practice.  It  is  probable 
that  there  never  has  been  a  time  at  which  so  much 
public  interest  in  education  has  been  shown  in  this 
country. 

There  is,  to  be  sure,  no  mystery  about  the  cause 
of  the  effervescence.  There  are  people  waiting  at 
every  street  corner — their  very  eagerness  being  a 
demonstration  of  the  enthusiasm  they  seek  to 
explain — to  exploit  the  commonplace  that  periods 
of  exceptional  educational  interest  always  follow 
great  wars.  The  statement  need  not  be  questioned, 
nor  need  the  fact  be  explained  at  length.  Intelligent 
people  need  no  help  in  understanding  the  relation 
of  cause  and  effect  here.  The  significant  point  is 
that  the  twentieth-century  interest  in  education 
cannot  be  attributed  solely  to  war  influences.  No 
doubt  on  this  occasion  education  was  itself  quite 
commonly  introduced  into  arguments,  as  one  of 
the  main  causes  of  the  war.  We  all  told  each  other 
that  the  German  educational  system  was  deliber- 
ately organised  to  promote  the  war  spirit  and  the 


6      What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 

preparation  for  fighting.  No  doubt  we  were  right, 
but  if  so  we  have  merely  carried  the  cause  a  few 
steps  farther  back.  In  all  probability,  the  causes 
that  led  to  the  outbreak  of  19 14  had  also  something 
to  do  with  the  great  development  of  interest  in 
education.  In  any  case,  that  development  was 
well  marked  long  before  the  fatal  August  of  that 
year. 

No  doubt  throughout  the  ages  there  have  always 
been  a  faithful  few  who  devoted  themselves  to 
purely  educational  problems.  The  labours  of  the 
historians  of  education  have  unearthed  quite  a 
respectable  number  of  these  worthy  people,  and 
have  placed  them  in  the  niches  to  which  they  are 
entitled.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that 
education  entered  upon  a  new  phase  so  soon  as 
popular  instruction  was  established  on  a  national 
basis  that  included  the  whole  population.  During 
the  debates  in  Parliament  that  led  to  the  passing 
of  the  Education  Act  in  1870,  a  considerable 
interest  in  the  subject  was  aroused  in  the  nation  at 
large,  but  as  soon  as  the  Act  came  into  force  the 
demand  for  the  training  of  an  army  of  teachers 
compelled  immediate  attention  to  the  nature  and 
methods  of  education.  Up  to  this  period  the 
demands  of  education  were  confined  to  the  supply 
of  capable  men  and  women  who  were  willing  to 
turn  their  energies  towards  the  teaching  of  boys 
and  girls.  For  the  higher  grades  of  work  men 
drifted  into  the  profession  from  the  universities, 
and  for  the  lower  grades  a  sufficient  supply  of  more 
or  less  educated  people  was  available.  From  the 
passing  of  the  Act  it  became  imperative  that  the 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching      7 

whole  subject  of  education  should  be  looked  at  in 
a  broader  way.  Thus  it  came  about  that  the 
development  of  education  as  a  subject  of  study 
received  a  remarkable  acceleration  from  that  time 
onward. 

Dr.  R.  Austin  Freeman,  in  his  Social  Decay  and 
Regeneration,  tells  us  that  in  all  departments  of 
life  there  has  been  an  enormous  increase  in  the 
rate  of  change  since  the  introduction  of  the  power 
machine.  In  all  essential  respects  the  Victory 
belonged  to  the  same  class  as  the  ships  of  Tarshish, 
and  the  change  from  the  Victory  to  the  Aquitania 
is  almost  infinitely  greater  than  any  change  in 
shipbuilding  that  took  place  during  the  whole  of 
the  preceding  centuries.  No  doubt,  in  an  indirect 
way,  the  power  machine  had  also  a  good  deal  to  do 
with  the  introduction  of  national  education,  though 
naturally  it  took  some  time  for  the  industrial 
revolution  to  produce  this,  perhaps  the  most  striking 
of  all  its  indirect  effects.  But  the  change,  when  it 
came,  revolutionised  educational  methods,  and  gave 
them  new  power,  new  form,  new  potentiality.  The 
difference  was  almost  as  great  as  that  between  the 
two  types  of  ships.  If  Plato  and  Aristotle  could 
return  from  the  shades  for  what  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion might  call  "  a  visit  without  notice  "  to  one  of 
our  great  Public  Schools,  they  would  probably  not 
feel  greatly  surprised  at  what  they  would  find  there  ; 
but  if  they  chanced  by  mistake  to  drop  into  one  of 
our  huge  elementary  schools,  they  would  certainly 
findr  themselves  very  much  at  sea. 

Naturally  enough,  the  first  effect  of  the  need  to 
train  an  army  of  schoolmasters  and  schoolmistresses 


8      What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 

was  to  direct  close  attention  to  the  human  element 
in  the  schools.  It  will  be  at  once  objected  that 
the  necessary  herding  together  of  great  masses  of 
boys  and  girls  in  class-rooms  tended  to  remove 
all  interest  in  them  as  human  beings.  This  is  true 
so  far  as  it  goes,  but  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  the  very  size  of  the  classes  made  it  impera- 
tive t^at  the  human  nature  of  the  children  should 
be  studied,  if  only  in  the  lump.  The  power  of 
managing  a  large  class  was  regarded  as  essential 
in  elementary  teaching.  The  teacher  might  not 
"  know  his  boys  "  in  the  secondary  schoolmaster's 
sense  of  that  phrase,  but  he  had  to  know  how  they 
behave  in  the  mass.  He  had  to  know  the  boy  generi- 
cally.  By  a  sort  of  shorthand  thinking  he  typified 
his  pupils  so  as  to  get  at  a  rough-and-ready  set  of 
principles  of  class-management.  Accordingly,  when 
training  colleges  were  established  for  the  preparation 
of  young  teachers  for  the  work  of  elementary  schools, 
it  was  only  natural  that  they  should  adopt  plans 
that  would,  in  the  shortest  and  easiest  way,  qualify 
their  students  to  meet  the  new  conditions  of  massed 
teaching.  No  doubt  the  students  had  to  have  a 
certain  training  in  the  academic  subjects,  but  these 
were  considered  to  be  of  secondary  importance. 
It  was  felt  that  training-college  students  would  soon 
learn  as  much  as  was  necessary  for  the  purposes 
of  the  elementary  school  curriculum.  The  popular 
opinion  is  well  represented  by  Dickens'  grim  account 
of  the  training  of  Mr.  M'Choakumchild  in  Hard 
Times.  But  whatever  happened  on  the  side  of 
culture,  there  was  never  the  least  doubt  in  the 
minds  of  the  authorities  about  the  need  of  develop- 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching      9 

ing  the  power  of  control.  The  real  problem  of 
the  college  was  felt  to  be  the  turning  out  of  students 
ready  to  take  up  a  position  in  a  huge  human  drill- 
yard  and  hold  their  own  there.  The  pretraining- 
college  view  had  been  that  if  a  man  knew  his  subject 
that  was  enough.  Sometimes,  indeed,  broad-minded 
masters  added  a  demand  for  a  sense  of  humour  ; 
but  the  knowledge  of  the  subject  to  be  taught  was 
the  sine  qua  non.  The  teacher  was  assumed,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  to  be  strong  enough  to  make  his 
boys  do  what  they  were  told,  but  anything  in  the 
way  of  skilful  class-manipulation,  or  the  scientific 
preparation  of  subject-matter  for  presentation  to 
a  large  class,  was  not  thought  of.  ___ 

The  result  of  the  new  methods  of  training  was 
that  by  and  by  it  began  to  be  noticed  that  there 
was  a  marked  difference  between  two  groups  of 
teachers.  Those  in  Public  and  secondary  schools 
were  usually  men  of  considerable  attainments  in 
the  subjects  they  taught,  but,  except  in  the  extreme- 
ly limited  ranks  of  the  heaven-born  teachers,  quite 
innocent  of  any  knowledge  of  method.  Indeed 
they  rather  prided  themselves  on  their  ignorance 
of  method,  and  spoke  contemptuously  of  the  petti- 
fogging "  methods  "  of  the  teachers  of  the  elemen- 
tary schools.  These  latter,  in  their  turn,  were  not 
credited  with  a  very  advanced  knowledge  of  any 
subject,  but  were  acknowledged  to  be,  generally 
speaking,  masters  in  the  art  of  presenting  what 
knowledge  they  did  possess.  So  strong  was  the 
public  opinion  on  this  subject,  that  some  of  the 
middle  classes  spoke  rather  bitterly  of  the  unfair- 
ness of  their  having  to  pay  rates  to  support  the  Board 


io    What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 

Schools,  while  social  reasons  made  it  necessary 
for  them  to  send  their  children  to  schools  where 
the  actual  teaching  was  inferior  to  what  was  found 
in  the  Board  Schools.  The  upshot  of  the  whole 
matter  was  that  the  study  of  education  as  such  began 
to  attract  public  attention.  University  professor- 
ships in  the  subject  were  founded,  and  even  secondary 
and  Public  School  men  and  women  began  to  look 
into  the  matter. 

Leaving  out  of  account  the  apparently  inevitable 
jealousies  among  the  different  grades  of  teachers, 
the  effect  of  this  professional  interest  has  been  the 
gradual  development  of  new  ideas  on  the  subject. 
The  changes  have  not  come  entirely  from  the  schools. 
Some  of  them  have  been  superposed  from  without. 
But  all  of  them  have  exercised  an  influence  beyond 
the  range  of  the  schools  that  have  actually  adopted 
them.  Many  teachers  who  are  too  timid  to  adopt 
outright  any  of  the  newer  plans  are  greatly  influenced 
by  them,  and  that  influence  is  manifest  in  the  way 
in  which  they  carry  on  their  school- work.  Very 
probably  this  is  just  the  way  in  which  innovations 
can  be  best  introduced  into  school  practice.  What- 
ever is  done,  everything  depends  upon  the  attitude 
of  the  actual  teacher.  It  is  accordingly  of  the  first 
importance  that  educational  reformers  should  be  able 
to  carry  the  teachers  with  them.  The  thing  cannot 
be  done  by  orders  issued  from  above  or  imposed  by 
the  prestige  of  authoritative  writers  on  education, 
however  distinguished.  Progress  can  be  best  secured 
by  persuading  teachers  of  the  superiority  of  the 
newer  plans.  This  will  naturally  be  accomplished 
in  different  degrees  with  different  teachers.    We 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching    n 

must  therefore  be  prepared  to  find  no  one  plan 
applied  in  all  degrees  of  completeness  in  the  schools 
of  the  country.  We  are  not  to  forget  that  in  our 
work,  as  elsewhere,  there  is  the  periodic  rise  and  fall 
of  tendencies.  Those  who  have  studied  the  history 
of  medicine  tell  us  that  certain  modes  of  treatment 
rise,  spread,  and  disappear  for  a  time,  only  to  repeat 
at  later  periods  the  same  process  with  slight  modi- 
fications. A  skilful  student  of  the  history  of 
education  could  supply  many  illustrations  of  this 
periodicity  in  the  case  of  our  craft. 

It  is  unpleasant  to  think  of  educational  movement 
being  a  mere  recurrent  series  of  waves,  unless  we 
can  be  sure  that  each  wave  rises  a  little  higher  than 
its  predecessor.  In  any  case,  we  are  unwilling  to 
believe  that  all  the  present  innovations  in  education 
are  merely  sporadic  outbreaks  of  separate  and 
independent  influences,  based  on  varying  and  un- 
correlated  views  on  the  big  question  of  education 
as  a  whole.  As  one  studies  the  different  plans 
and  methods,  however,  one  is  led  to  see  that  they 
have  a  great  deal  more  in  common  than  one  would 
at  first  sight  suppose.  Indeed,  it  is  extremely 
difficult  in  dealing  with  any  one  of  them  to  avoid 
dropping  into  a  consideration  of  some  of  the  others. 
In  writing  such  a  book  as  this,  there  is  little  tempta- 
tion to  fall  into  the  water-tight-compartment  line 
of  error.  Inter-connections  crop  up  at  every  turn. 
The  different  chapters  can,  with  difficulty,  be  kept 
apart.  There  appears  to  be  an  underlying  force 
making  for  unity.  If  the  same  thought  has  some- 
times to  be  presented  under  different  aspects,  the 
explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  organic  oneness 


12    What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 

of  the  subject.  Naturally,  the  enquirer  wants  to 
discover  whether  there  is  an  underlying  general 
principle  exemplified  in  all  the  newer  movements, 
and  I  believe  that  something  not  unlike  such  a 
guiding  principle  can  be  found. 

Probably  this  principle  is  to  be  sought  in  the 
culmination  of  a  tendency  that  has  been  develop- 
ing for  many  generations,  rather  than  in  the  sudden 
appearance  of  a  new  influence.  My  attention 
to  what  I  believe  to  be  this  dominating  tendency 
was  roused  in  a  curious  way  by  reflection,  at  a  very 
immature  age,  on  the  syntax  rule  in  my  Edinburgh 
Academy  Latin  Rudiments  that  runs  :  "  Verbs  of 
teaching  govern  two  accusatives,  one  of  the  person, 
another  of  the  thing  :  as  Magister  Latinamjohannem 
docuit — the  master  taught  John  Latin."  The  essen- 
tial difference  between  the  old  and  the  new  teaching 
lies  in  the  incidence  of  effort  on  these  two  accusatives. 
The  old  teachers  laid  most  of  the  stress  on  Latin, 
the  new  lay  it  on  John.  In  both  cases  it  is  probable 
that  the  teacher  still  drives  his  team  tandem, 
though  of  old  Latin  came  first,  while  John  was 
kept  in  the  backward  region  where,  incidentally, 
he  was  more  accessible  to  the  whip.  In  these  days 
John  is  brought  into  the  position  of  prominence, 
and  certainly  gets  his  full  share  of  the  teacher's 
attention. 

The  figure,  after  the  manner  of  figures,  leads  us 
into  difficulties.  It  may  be  legitimately  maintained 
that  the  teacher  cannot,  by  any  possibility,  do  real 
teaching  at  all  if  he  neglects  either  John  or  Latin. 
To  this  a  cordial  assent  may  be  given,  and  yet  the 
point  be  maintained  that  it  is  possible  to  vitiate 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching    13 

the  teacher's  work  by  an  unwholesome  distribution 
of  his  attention.  Perhaps  the  figure  may  be  carried 
farther  by  the  suggestion  that  the  New  Teaching 
does  not  put  John  in  the  front,  but  drives  him  and 
Latin  side  by  side.  The  tandem  method  has  been 
given  up  altogether,  and  one  of  the  most  charac- 
teristic features  of  the  intelligent  New  Teaching  is 
that  the  true  relation  between  pupil  and  subject- 
matter  has  been  clearly  recognised. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  history  of  education 
will  not  be  slow  to  point  out  that  this  change  in 
the  incidence  of  the  teacher's  attention  is  no  new 
thing.  They  will  almost  certainly  select  Rousseau 
as  the  chief  exponent  of  the  attitude,  and  probably 
most  people  will  agree.  Admittedly  in  his  writings 
we  are  dealing  with  a  real  live  child,  however  arti- 
ficial and  grown  up  he  becomes  in  the  hands  of  his 
artificially  inclined  creator.  Pompous  and  pedantic 
as  is  the  dandified  little  Emile,  he  is  the  best  his 
creator  could  produce  as  an  example  of  the  natural 
child.  He  was  undoubtedly  meant  to  be  natural. 
Is  not  Rousseau's  principle  Education  according  to 
Nature  ?  Further,  he  was  regarded  by  his  creator  as 
more  important  than  the  subjects  that  were  taught 
him  in  a  more  or  less  artificial  way.  Rousseau 
can  therefore  be  justly  claimed  as  a  precursor  of  the 
new  educators  who  fix  their  attention  upon  the 
pupil  as  the  centre  of  their  interest.  But  it  has 
taken  all  the  time  from  the  publication  of  the  Emile 
in  1762  till  now  to  get  this  attitude  firmly  established. 
It  was  not  till  the  other  day  that  a  term  was  felt 
to  be  needed  to  indicate  the  change  of  the  incidence 
of  attention  'from  the  subject  to  the  pupil.     We 


14    What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 

need  that  term,  but  many  of  us  are  unwilling  to  pay 
its  price  by  incurring  the  odium  of  introducing 
a  neologism.  Fortunately,  however,  the  work  has 
already  been  done  by  one  who  has  sinned  so  deeply 
in  the  way  of  neologisms  that  one  more  or  less 
cannot  in  any  way  affect  him.  It  is  one  of  Dr.  G. 
Stanley  Hall's  flagrant  defiances  of  pedagogic 
decorum  to  use  the  hybrid  adjective  paidocentric. 
It  is  regrettable  ;  but  since  the  word  is  there,  and 
the  mischief  has  been  done,  anyhow,  why  not  use 
the  term  ?  Accordingly,  with  a  subdued  "  Thanks  " 
to  its  author,  let  us  boldly  accept  paidocentricism 
as  the  name  of  what  appears  to  have  a  fair  claim 
to  be  regarded  as  the  underlying  principle  of  the 
New  Teaching. 

A  very  little  reflection  will  show  that  all  the  newer 
tendencies  are  paidocentric.  Montessorianism  is  a 
consistent  sweeping  away  of  everything — except 
perhaps  apparatus — that  can  obscure  our  view  of 
the  living  child.  Everything  centres  in  the  child, 
and  the  teacher,  so  far  from  being  a  competitor  for 
attention,  is  to  be  kept  scrupulously  out  of  the  way, 
except  in  so  far  as  she  is  called  upon  by  the  little 
person  who  occupies  the  focus  of  the  limelight. 
The  Dalton  Plan  again  asks  the  teacher  to  step 
aside,  and  let  the  children  act  on  their  own  account. 
The  Intelligence  Tests  put  the  child  in  the  fore- 
front :  even  when  the  investigations  are  carried  on 
by  groups,  the  ultimate  result  is  estimated  by  the 
light  it  throws  on  the  nature  of  the  individual  child. 
The  subject-matter  of  the  tests  is  of  importance 
only  in  so  far  as  it  fits  into  the  needs  of  the  individual 
child,  who  forms  the  ultimate  unit  of  the  teacher's 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching    15 

work.  Supervised  study,  again,  centralises  the  child. 
The  Gary  Scheme  deliberately  builds  the  school 
round  the  requirements  of  the  child  :  these  dominate 
everything.  The  Play  Way  with  all  that  it  implies 
is  conspicuously  worked  out  at  the  address  of  the 
child.  The  Project  Method  is  a  complete  surrender 
to  the  child's  point  of  view.  We  shall  find,  in  fact, 
that  all  we  have  to  say  about  the  pupil  being  an 
end  in  himself  as  well  as  a  means  to  the  ends  of  others, 
and  all  about  the  tendencies  to  split  up  the  class- 
teaching  system,  supply  exemplifications  of  the 
principle  of  paidocentricism. 

It  has  become  fashionable,  indeed,  to  speak  of  this 
as  the  children's  century,  though  it  has  in  fairness  to 
be  admitted  that  the  nineteenth  century  was  before 
us  in  this  claim.  This  implies  a  gradual  working- 
up  to  a  climax  of  interest  in  and  respect  for  the 
age  of  childhood.  In  itself  this  is  merely  one,  though 
perhaps  the  most  important,  manifestation  of  the 
general  tendency  of  the  twentieth  century  before 
the  war  to  protect  the  relatively  weak.  Even  after 
the  war  (and  in  spite  of  the  hardness  it  left  behind) 
it  may  not  be  quite  untrue  to  describe  the  present 
as  the  time  of  the  physically  weak,  the  time  when, 
as  never  before,  the  world  is  considerate  of  the  unfit, 
the  unfortunate,  the  down-dog,  the  person  who  has 
not  the  bodily  energy  to  enforce  claims  on  society. 
However  this  may  be,  it  is  certainly  in  a  very  full 
sense  the  time  of  the  child.  Alike  by  legislation, 
by  personal  investigation — as  in  all  forms  of  Child 
Study  and  the  genetic  forms  of  psychology — and  by 
public  opinion,  the  child  is  proved  to  have  entered 
into   his   kingdom,    A   fundamental   tendency   of 


16    What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 


this  kind  not  only  exercises  a  potent  influence  in 
general  society,  but  bears  directly  upon  the  work 
of  our  schools  and  school  people.     Thus  we  read  : 

"  The  tests  are  used  to  locate  pupil  weaknesses  in  order 
that  such  weaknesses  may  be  corrected.  The  individual 
child  thus  becomes  the  centre  and  object  of  the  work. 
It  is  not  school  systems  as  such,  but  children  that  are 
important.  That  we  have  so  quickly,  in  the  use  of  standard 
tests,  come  to  recognise  that  the  child  is  the  real  centre  and 
the  true  object  of  consideration,  is  an  indication  that  to-day, 
as  never  before,  the  spirit  of  progress  and  service  is  domin- 
ating and  determining  all  educational  effort."  1 

That  the  tendency  is  to  correlate  pupil  and  subject- 
matter,  not  to  emphasise  one  at  the  expense  of  the 
other,  is  shown  in  the  French  movement  towards 
what  they  call  integral  instruction.  They  note  that 
at  the  end  of  a  long  course  of  instruction  the  pupil 
retains  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  knowledge  im- 
parted to  him,  and  some  at  least  of  their  writers 
appear  to  regard  it  as  a  practical  proposition  to  find 
what  usually  makes  up  this  residuum,  and  confine 
their  instruction  to  that,  thus  saving  the  time  and 
labour  involved  in  communicating  all  the  rest  of  the 
matter  that  normally  disappears  in  any  case.  The 
wiser  integralists  see  what  a  nonsensical  attitude 
this  is,  and  set  about  establishing  a  system  in  which 
all  the  elements  will  be  so  correlated  as  to  form  an 
organic  whole. '  At  present,  instruction  is  largely 
a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches.  Our  pupils  learn  a 
large  number  of  subjects  each  more  or  less  independ- 
ently of  the  others,  and  our  pupils  too  often  see 

1  Preface  to  How  to  Measure,  by  G.  M.  Wilson  and  K.  J. 
Hoke  (1920). 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching    17 


little  connection  among  them.  The  French  critics 
are  disappointed  to  find  that  the  pupils  learn  this, 
that,  and  the  other  subject  at  different  times  of  the 
day,  without  ever  troubling  to  find  out  whether 
they  have  any  connection  with  each  other.  A  refer- 
ence to  the  attitude  of  the  teachers  brings  little 
comfort,  for  they  too  do  their  hour's  duty  with  the 
class  without  reference  to  the  pupil's  work  as  a 
whole.  It  is,  as  a  distinguished  French  educator " 
remarks,  "  a  case  of  a  fragment  of  an  educator 
addressing  itself  to  a  fragment  of  a  pupil,"  and,  he 
might  have  added,  "  about  a  fragment  of  a  subject." 
The  French  are  so  impressed  by  the  ultimate  unity 
of  the  sciences  that  they  are  tempted  to  seek  a  solu- 
tion in  a  unification  of  the  subject-matter  of  the 
curriculum  ;  but  the  wiser  among  them  realise  that 
the  educational  solution  must  be  found  in  the  educa- 
tional process  itself.  What  is  wanted  is  not  merely 
that  the  curriculum  should  be  so  organised  as  to 
present  an  organic  unity  of  subject-matter,  but  that 
the  staff  of  the  school  should  act  as  an  educational 
unity  in  its  influence  on  the  individual  pupil. 

A  good  deal  of  the  groping  of  the  New  Education 
is  towards  some  means  of  reaching  this  unification 
of  the  teaching  forces.  John  Dewey's  School  and 
Society  presents  with  great  clearness  one  aspect  of 
the  movement,  and  the  persistent  tendency  towards 
socialising  ■  the  teaching  of  the  school  subjects  shows 
the  working  of  the  seed  he  sowed.  The  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  fragmentary  nature  of  the  current 

1  Ernest  Lavisse  in  his  chapter  on  "  Une  Education 
Manquee  "  in  a  work  entitled  L  Education  de  la  Democratic. 

2  Cf .  R.  If.  Weeks'  Socialising  the  Three  R's. 

2 


1 8    What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 

educational  system  is  widespread,  and  is  expressed 
very  emphatically  even  when  it  is  accompanied 
by  positive  suggestions  for  improvement.  Take 
the  following  from  an  appeal  against  the  penny- 
wise  plan  of  having  our  boys  and  girls  educated  by 
poorly  or  badly  trained  teachers.  The  appeal  is 
from  the  school  to  the  parents  : 

"  Because  the  average  school  works  against  the  health 
of  our  sons  and  daughters,  we  must  strive  all  the  harder 
to  upbuild  that  health.  Because  the  school  tends  to  stunt 
the  body  and  mind  and  even  the  soul  of  the  child,  we  must 
work  all  the  more  to  expand  those.  Because  the  school 
still  depends  on  the  old,  bad  stimulus  of  competition,  we 
must  emphasise  all  the  more  the  beauty  of  co-operation, 
of  each  working  for  all  and  all  for  each.  Because  the  school 
puts  most  of  its  emphasis  upon  using  the  head,  we  must 
do  everything  we  can  to  provide  occupation  for  the  body 
and  the  hands  ..."  and  so  on.1 

This  pessimism  is  reflected  within  the  profession 
itself,  and  gives  rise  to  rather  revolutionary  demands. 
Mr.  Caldwell  Cook  has  no  hesitation  in  expressing 
very  strong  views  on  the  subject : 

"  The  educational  system  has,  in  fact,  not  been  evolving 
at  all,  it  has  been  congealing.  And  now  it  has  become 
clogged,  stuck  fast.  The  educational  system  has  ceased 
to  be  educational.  Consequently,  we  cannot  look  for 
reform  through  minor  adjustments.  The  suggested  im- 
provements of  which  we  have  heard  do  not  go  to  the  heart 
of  the  matter.     We  must  have  an  upheaval."  2 

Something  rather  like  this  desired  upheaval  is  in 

1  J.  P.  Munroe,  in  The  Human  Factor  in  Education, 
p.  30. 

*  The  Play  Way,  p.  353. 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching    19 

sight  at  the  present  time,  and  might  be  regarded 
as  imminent  but  for  the  restraining  force  of  an  in- 
stitution that  in  Britain  exercises  the  most  powerful 
influence  in  favour  of  the  policy  of  "no  further 
action.' '  Nobody  acquainted  with  educational 
affairs  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  needs  to  be  told 
what  this  force  is.  External  examinations  form 
the  dead  hand  that  tradition  places  upon  all  attempts 
to  get  out  of  the  rut  of  established  educational 
custom.  It  is  difficult  for  anyone  not  actually 
engaged  in  school-work  to  realise  the  handicap 
put  upon  every  attempt  at  educational  reform  in 
Britain  by  the  position  of  prestige  granted  to  the 
work  of  the  external  examiner.  The  testing  of  the 
results  of  work  done  in  school  is  an  excellent  thing 
in  its  way,  but  it  ought  to  be  kept  in  its  proper 
place  of  subordination  to  the  work  being  done.  It 
is  pitiful  that  it  should  be  necessary  to  state  in  plain 
words  the  platitude  that  schools  exist  for  the  pur- 
pose of  education.  In  actual  practice  what  the 
teacher  has  to  keep  in  the  foreground  is  the  exter- 
nal examination.  In  spite  of  the  incessant  wail 
against  them  for  the  best  part  of  a  century,  external 
examinations  still  remain  in  their  unwarranted  and 
hurtful  position  as  the  dominant  influence  in  educa- 
tion of  all  grades.  Nothing  of  vital  importance 
can  be  done  in  the  way  of  reforming  educational 
methods  till  this  incubus  has  been  removed.  We 
shall  find  in  the  following  pages  that  every  suggestion 
for  improvement  is  met  by  the  practical  objection 
— "  But  what  about  the  examinations  ?  " 

Let  it  be  admitted  at  once  that  there  is  need  of 
some  means  of  testing  the  results  of  the  teacher's 


20    What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 

work  in  some  directions  that  lend  themselves  to  this 
form  of  estimating  results.  The  highest  results 
of  a  teacher's  work  can  never  be  tested  by  any  formal 
examination.  Only  the  after  lives  of  his  pupils 
can  bear  true  testimony  to  the  value  of  his  work, 
and  even  these  cannot  be  so  accurately  analysed 
as  to  give  reliable  data  on  which  to  form  a  judgment. 
But  it  is  true  that  his  work  as  a  mere  instructor  can 
be  tested  in  a  more  or  less  mechanical  way,  and  in  a 
commercial  nation  like  ours  it  is  perhaps  natural 
that  some  such  test  should  be  demanded.  The 
school  inspectors  of  the  Lowe  period  had  the  police 
function  clearly  in  mind.  They  were  there  to  see 
that  the  nation  got  value  for  its  money,  and  a 
mechanical  system  of  measuring  results  was  rigidly 
applied.  The  gross  failure  of  their  crude  methods 
threw  the  system  into  disrepute,  and  the  modern 
examination  system  is  based  on  much  more  rational 
principles.  Even  the  Board  of  Education  has  set  itself 
to  reduce  the  total  amount  of  examination  work 
to  be  demanded  from  the  pupils,  and  has,  in  fact, 
reached  the  stage  that  only  two  examinations  are 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  ordinary  pupil  taking 
a  complete  school  course  ending  at  eighteen.  Still, 
there  has  to  be  a  certain  amount  of  uniformity  in 
these  two  examinations.  The  pupils  have  to  face 
a  test  of  a  prescribed  kind,  the  preparation  for  which 
necessarily  limits  the  freedom  of  the  teachers. 

No  well-conducted  school  will  object  to  its  in- 
struction results  being  tested  even  by  an  outside 
body,  so  long  as  the  test  is  applied  with  reference 
to  the  actual  work  done  in  the  school — that  is,  so 
long  as  the  test  is  subordinate  to  the  instruction, 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching    21 

instead  of  dominating  it.  In  Chapter  IV  certain 
attempts  are  described  by  which  ingenious  persons 
have  sought  to  establish  such  standards  as  may  be 
applied  on  more  or  less  generally  accepted  principles, 
in  a  way  that  will  leave  the  teachers  entirely  free 
to  follow  whatever  methods  they  find  produce  the 
best  practical — but  not  necessarily  examinational — 
results. 

Probably  the  line  of  development  will  be  the  grad- 
ual substitution  of  inspection  for  examination.  The 
external  authorities  will  satisfy  themselves  by  means 
of  inspection  that  the  schools  are  working  on  sound 
principles,  and  are  teaching  the  subjects  that  meet 
the  needs  of  society,  and  then  accept  the  pupils 
trained  in  such  schools  as  qualified  either  to  enter 
the  universities,  or  to  take  up  whatever  walk  in 
life  they  may  desire  to  follow,  without  any  further 
examination  on  school  subjects.  No  doubt  further 
examinations  will  be  necessary  to  satisfy  employers 
who  demand  special  qualifications,  but  these  will 
be  professional  or  industrial  examinations,  and  will 
leave  the  school  course  free  for  the  teachers  to  develop 
in  the  best  way  they  can,  without  the  present  bar 
to  practically  all  serious  and  fundamental  reform. 

It  does  not  by  any  means  follow  that  when  the 
lion  of  external  examination  is  removed  from  the 
path  there  will  be  an  immediate  and  overwhelming 
rush  after  new  methods.  Those  reactionary  teachers 
who  find  a  certain  satisfaction  in  the  present  exami- 
nation system,  because  it  provides  a  convenient  break- 
water against  a  threatened  flood  of  innovations,  need 
have  no  concern.  Our  profession  is  an  eminently 
conservative  one.     Contentment  with  things  as  they 


22    What  underlies  the  New  Teaching 

are  is  not  perhaps  a  sine  qua  non  in  the  make-up 
of  a  successful  teacher,  but  it  goes  a  long  way  towards 
securing  a  conventional  success.  Yet  with  the 
removal  of  the  barrier  of  the  examination  system 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  very  steady  trend 
towards  improved  methods  would  at  once  become 
noticeable.  It  does  no  service  to  the  cause  of 
progress  to  maintain  that  greater  advances  are  being 
made  than  is  really  the  case.  There  is  now  a 
Conference  on  New  Ideals  in  Education,  that 
appears  to  be  established  as  an  annual  one,  which 
is  regarded  as  a  sort  of  clearing-house  for  the 
exchange  of  the  various  new  ideas  that  are  being 
worked  out  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  When 
we  hear  of  Mr.  O'NenTs  school  at  Manchester,  Mr. 
Arrowsmith's  in  Lincolnshire,  Mr.  MacMunn'sTiptree 
Hall  Institution,  not  to  speak  of  Mr.  Homer  Lane's 
famous  Little  Commonwealth,  we  feel  that  things 
are  moving,  and  need  the  caution  that  Mr.  MacMunn 
gives  us.  He  is  not  pleased  at  the  progress  being 
made  in  experimental  education,  and  utters  a  protest 
in  the  very  opposite  sense  of  Mr.  Cholmeley's : 

"  Nothing  is  more  distressing  than  to  hear  men  who  should 
know  better  endeavouring  to  represent  present-day  schools 
as  places  filled  with  teachers  of  a  changed  heart  and  a  love 
of  experiment.  The  author  has  several  times  been  charged 
with  having  underrated  the  improvement  of  method  in 
recent  years.  This  is  plainly  a  little  innocent  Jesuitry — 
for  everybody  with  the  smallest  capacity  for  analysis 
and  power  of  observation  and  means  of  meeting  both 
boys  and  masters,  knows  that  experimental  methods  are 
so  rare  as  to  be  far  from  falling  within  the  reach  of  a  majority 
of  children."  «  » 

*  The  Child's  Path  to  Freedom,  p.  40, 


What  underlies  the  New  Teaching    23 

All  the  same,  we  can  again  take  up  Mr.  Ernest 
Young's  The  New  Era  in  Education,  turn  over  its 
hopeful  pages,  and  find  ourselves  impressed  with  the 
new  spirit  it  breathes,  and  with  the  number  of  places 
in  which  this  spirit  finds  it  possible  to  realise  its 
ideals.  To  be  sure,  on  investigation  a  large  number 
of  the  experiments  appear  to  be  conducted  in  con- 
nection with  private  enterprise  institutions,  but 
elementary  and  secondary  municipal  schools  find 
a  place  and  prove  that  experiment  is  not  ruled 
out  even  in  state-controlled  schools.  Indeed,  it  is 
perhaps  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  present  Board 
of  Education  and  its  officials  are  at  least  as  much 
inclined  for  experiment  as  are  the  teachers. 

The  recent  literature  on  the  general  subject  of 
education  falls  naturally  into  the  two  groups  of 
pessimism  and  optimism.  Probably,  on  the  whole, 
pessimism  has  it.  I  find  that  I  have  quite  a  library 
of  books  with  such  depressing  titles  as  The  Tragedy 
of  Education,  The  Curse  of  Education,  Where  Edu- 
cation Fails,  Fool  Culture,  Essays  in  Revolt.  The 
optimists  take  a  less  exuberant  tone,  though  Mr. 
William  Piatt  wins  general  praise  by  his  bold  title 
The  Joy  of  Education.  The  denunciations,  however, 
are  all  more  or  less  theoretical  and  destructive, 
the  optimists  are  practical  and  constructive,  though 
of  course  they  have  to  demolish  before  they  can  set 
about  building,  for  clear  sites  in  education  are  rare. 
In  any  case,  it  will  be  found  that  the  movements 
most  characteristic  of  the  present  day  have  a  dis- 
tinctly practical  turn,  and  are  based  on  a  philosophy 
that  is  full  of  hope. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  CHILD,  THE  SCHOOL,  AND  THE  WORLD 

GIVEN  the  living  child  here  and  now  present,  the 
problem  is  to  educate  him.  The  very  men- 
tion of  this  final  verb  exposes  us  to  the  imminent 
danger  of  such  a  flood  of  definition  as  may  overwhelm 
us  before  we  get  well  started.  With  a  full  knowledge 
of  all  that  can  be  and  has  been  said  against  it,  we 
may  not  unwisely  accept  as  a  provisional  statement 
of  the  aim  of  education  Herbert  Spencer's  preparation 
for  complete  living.  Among  the  practical  people 
of  the  English-speaking  world  it  will  be  found  that 
this  provides  the  line  of  least  resistance.  There 
is  just  that  degree  of  vagueness  about  the  statement 
that  allows  of  making  a  beginning  without  leading 
to  immediate  quarrelling  about  terms.  To  be  sure, 
hundreds  of  questions  are  trembling  on  the  lips 
of  those  who  read  the  Spencer i an  principle,  but 
sensible  people  realise  that  a  beginning  must  be 
made  somewhere,  and  complete  living  is  a  phrase 
comprehensive  enough  to  satisfy  the  most  exacting. 
The  naked  elements  of  the  case  in  actual  life  are 
the  living  child,  the  world  for  which  he  has  to  be 
prepared,  and  the  school  where  the  preparation  is 
to  take  place.  To  this  extent  the  school  as  a  social 
institution  has  to  be  taken  for  granted.     How  far 

24 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  25 

its  present  form  need  be  retained  is  a  matter  for 
discussion. 

As  things  stand,  the  school  and  the  world  appear 
to  be  out  of  harmony.  A  very  common  attitude 
towards  the  work  of  schools  is  well  illustrated  in  a 
remarkable  volume  by  an  American  author  setting 
out  his  autobiography  under  the  form  of  a  search 
for  an  education — a  search,  by  the  way,  that  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  successful.  The  reader  of 
The  Education  of  Henry  Adams  is  irritated  by  the 
persistent  way  in  which  the  author  mixes  up  the 
ideas  of  education  and  life.  Systematic  education 
of  all  kinds  is  belittled,  but  anything  in  real  life 
that  chances  to  have  had  an  effect  upon  the  writer's 
character  is  treated  with  respect  and  referred  to  as 
"  accidental  education."  This  deliberate  confusion 
goads  the  reader  to  demand  a  working  distinction 
between  education  properly  so  called  and  the  educa- 
tive influences  that  are  brought  into  play  by  the 
mere  process  of  living  in  the  world.  Elsewhere  1 
I  have  used  the  term  cosmic  to  mark  off  this  undeli- 
berate but  very  effective  "  licking  into  shape " 
that  goes  on  in  ordinary  living.  But  a  simpler 
and  more  appropriate  term,  "  by-education  "  ■  is 
coming  into  use,  and  will  be  found  convenient  in 
distinguishing  the  systematic  work  of  the  school 
from  the  less  formal  but  not  less  effective  educational 
influences  of  social  intercourse  of  all  kinds.  Hitherto 
by-education  has  not  had  the  consideration  it  deserves 
at  the  hands  of  those  who  have  dealt  with  the  sub- 
ject.    School  education  has  up  till  now  been  treated 

1  Evolution  of  Educational  Theory,  p.  31. 

*  Cf .  David  Snedden,  Vocational  Education,  p.  8. 


26  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

as  a  thing  apart  and  out  of  all  relation  to  the  wider 
forces  that  underlie  by-education.  For  a  true 
understanding  of  the  educational  problem  as  a  whole, 
there  must  be  a  careful  consideration  of  their 
interaction. 

The   whole   paraphernalia   of  public   education, 
with  its  elaborate  system  of  administration  and  its 
network  of  institutions  and  buildings,  lead  to  such 
a  concentration  of  attention  on  the  school  that  the 
ordinary  person  may  be  forgiven  if  he  comes  to 
regard  education  as  confined  to  what  goes  on  in 
buildings  recognised  for  this  purpose.     He  i s  tempted 
to  regard  it  as  something  that  begins  at  nine  or 
nine-thirty  each  day  and   ceases  at   four  or  four- 
thirty,  with  a  varying  interval  for  lunch.     In  many 
cases  Saturdays  and  Sundays  are  free  days,  in  which 
the  pupils  are  not  being  educated,  but  merely  live. 
This  vague  view  the  plain  man  may  perhaps  accept 
without  sin  ;   but  for  the  educator  it  is  out  of  the 
question.     He    must    realise    that    the    educative 
process  goes  on  relentlessly  all  the  time  that  his 
educands  are   awake,  and,  if   the   psycho-analysts 
are  to  be  believed,  it  does  not  cease  even  when  they 
are  asleep.     It  is  only  in  thought  that  the  school 
and  the  out-of-school  world  can  be  regarded  as 
independent  of  each  other.     Professional  teachers 
are  entitled  to  draw  quite  a  sharp  distinction  between 
what  goes  on  in  school  and  what  goes  on  in  the  out- 
side  world.     Such   a   distinction   is   necessary  for 
teaching  purposes  ;  but  they  will  never  fail  to  realise 
that  the  two  spheres  form  part  of  the  same  world, 
and  are  so  intimately  connected  with  each  other 
that  any  attempt  to  isolate  them  is  futile. 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  27 

No  doubt  a  certain  type  of  teacher — fortunately 
not  at  all  a  common  one — claims  a  practical  divorce 
between  the  school  and  the  outer  world.  He  adopts 
the  attitude  that  as  we  go  to  an  ironmonger's  for 
hardware,  to  a  fishmonger's  for  fish,  to  a  bookseller's 
for  books,  so  we  go  to  a  school  for  information. 
Schools  are  knowledge-shops,  and  teachers  are  in- 
formation-mongers. Their  business  consists  in  com- 
municating a  certain  amount  of  knowledge,  and  their 
duties  are  discharged  so  soon  as  the  agreed  amount 
has  been  imparted.  There  are,  no  doubt,  types  of 
schools  where  this  attitude  may  be  reasonably 
maintained.  An  explicit  bargain  is  recognised, 
a  certain  amount  of  knowledge  or  skill  to  be  im- 
parted for  a  given  price,  and,  in  the  popular  phrase, 
"  no  questions  asked."  Such  institutions  over- 
emphasise the  teaching  aspect  to  the  disadvantage 
of  the  educational.  It  is  true  that  educational 
responsibility  may  be  rejected,  but  educational  effects 
follow  all  the  same.  It  is  a  case  not  merely  of  direct 
teaching,  but  also  of  by-education.  Even  the  in- 
formation-mongers, however,  have  to  admit  that 
in  the  last  resort  they  cannot  dissociate  their  school- 
work  from  what  goes  on  in  the  outer  world,  since 
their  stock  of  information  owes  its  value  to  the  use 
that  may  be  made  of  it  outside  school. 

While  the  plain  common  sense  of  practical  people 
has  made  it  possible  to  assume  as  a  working  hypo- 
thesis the  Spencerian  view  of  the  aim  of  education, 
we  cannot  hope  for  anything  like  the  same  unanimity 
when  we  suggest  that,  taking  the  widest  view  of 
education,  we  should  like  to  regard  the  promotion 
of  the  self-realisation  of  the  educand  as  its  ultimate 


28  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

goal.  The  truth  is  that  the  aim  of  education  is 
suffering  very  badly  from  over-discussion.  The 
subject  has  been  threshed  out  to  such  an  extent 
that  there  appears  to  be  almost  nothing  left.  It 
does  not  seem  an  unreasonable  or  dangerous  sug- 
gestion that  the  final  aim  of  the  educator  is  to  enable 
the  educands  to  make  of  themselves  the  best  of 
which  they  are  capable.  To  those  who  sternly  insist 
upon  the  rights  of  others,  and  hold  that  no  man 
liveth  to  himself  alone  and  that  it  is  selfish  merely 
to  cultivate  oneself,1  we  can  make  all  the  concessions 
required,  and  still  maintain  that  even  in  the  in- 
terests of  others  it  is  essential  that  our  educands 
should  make  the  best  of  themselves.  Society  is  not 
being  neglected  while  the  units  of  which  it  is  made 
up  are  being  improved.  On  the  other  hand,  no 
one  understands  more  clearly  than  the  upholder 
of  self-realisation  that  his  ideal  is  unattainable 
except  in  so  far  as  the  individual  reacts  wholesomely 
on  his  fellows.  Perhaps  the  argument  most  likely 
to  win  acceptance  of  the  self-realisation  ideal  among 
practical  people  is  that  it  is  in  no  way  antagonistic 
to  the  Spencerian  ideal  of  complete  living,  for 
obviously  complete  living  demands  that  the  in- 
dividual must  be  enabled  to  make  the  most  of  him- 
self. The  whole  modern  conception  of  individuality 
is  that  it  can  be  fully  realised  only  in  and  through 
a  society. 

Though  life  in  school  should  not  differ  in  essentials 
from  life  outside  it,  there  should  be  a  difference  in 
the  incidence  of  the  forces  concerned.     In  the  last 

1  See,  for  example,  Dr.  Edward  Lyttelton's  Letters  on 
Education. 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  29 

resort  education  consists  in  the  manipulation  of  the 
experience  of  the  educand.  The  school  is  only 
a  place  where  experience  can  be  best  manipulated 
to  the  advantage  of  the  pupils.  As  Professor  W. 
Franklin  Jones  puts  it  in  his  Principles  of  Education  : 
"  The  school  is  fundamentally  an  experience-giving 
institution,  and  if  it  cannot  give  more  vital 
experiences  than  the  child  can  get  anywhere  else  in  the 
world,  it  has  no  valid  claim  upon  his  time."  '  Dr. 
E.  C.  Moore,  of  the  University  of  Southern  California, 
works  out  this  idea  in  greater  detail  in  his  What 
is  Education  ?  To  this  question  his  answer  is  that 
it  consists  in  the  manipulation  of  the  experience 
of  the  educands  in  such  a  way  as  to  lead  to  their 
taking  their  proper  place  in  the  society  in  which 
they  have  to  live. 

This  manipulation  of  the  environment  is  sometimes 
opposed  on  moral  grounds.  The  eminent  French 
philosopher,  Emile  Boutroux,  strongly  protested 
against  the  deceptions  of  what  he  called  pedagogy 
as  contrasted  with  education  : 

"  Education,  pure  and  simple,  makes  straight  for  the 
end  it  has  in  view,  employing  the  methods  suggested  by 
ordinary  good  sense,  tact,  and  affection,  or  taught  by 
observation  and  experience.  Pedagogy,  as  interpreted  by 
its  most  famous  representatives,  mocks  at  these  natural 
processes  and  cunningly  endeavours  to  substitute  therefor 
methods  that  are  learned  and  artificial.  .  .  .  The  pedagogy 
of  which  I  speak  never  proceeds  along  a  straight  path,  but 
is  ever  on  the  look-out  for  side-tracks.  .  .  .  Now  the  use 
of  these  artifices  is  an  illegitimate  use."  a 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  8. 

*  Education  and  Ethics,  Introduction,  p.  xxxii. 


30  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

Monsieur  Boutroux  is  here  tilting  against  the 
ingenious  devices  of  Locke  and  Rousseau  to  get  the 
educand  to  follow  a  line  of  conduct  desired  by  the 
educator.  But  manipulation  of  the  environment 
does  not  necessarily  imply  deception  in  the  moral 
sense  of  that  term.  Things  may  be  so  arranged 
that  events  must  happen  in  just  the  order  to  suit 
the  needs  of  the  educator — an  order,  however,  that 
would  never  have  occurred  but  for  his  thoughtful 
prevision.  The  child  who  is  thrown  into  a  society 
without  any  preparation  at  once  sets  about  co- 
ordinating his  experience  in  such  a  way  as  to  secure 
the  best  results,  as  he  understands  results.  Within 
his  own  narrow  limits  he  often  succeeds  so  well 
as  to  rouse  the  envy  of  the  parents  of  those  who  can 
afford  what  they  are  sometimes  constrained  to  call 
the  doubtful  advantages  of  a  school  education.  It 
is  this  feeling  that  underlies  Professor  S.  S.  Laurie's 
curious  plea  to  provide  for  the  children  of  the  well- 
to-do  some  of  "  the  advantages  of  the  gutter." 
But  these  benefits  are  dearly  bought  in  this  market. 
They  can  be  obtained  in  a  much  less  costly  way  in 
a  school,  if  only  that  school  be  so  conducted  as  to 
bring  it  into  a  living  relation  to  what  goes  on  in 
the  outside  world.  Any  artifices  the  teacher  can 
utilise  to  bring  his  pupils  into  closer  touch  with  the 
realities  of  life  should  be  welcomed,  and  Monsieur 
Boutroux'  indignation  should  be  diverted  towards 
those  schools  that  by  keeping  apart  school-interests 
and  world-interests  deceive  their  pupils  about  the 
real  nature  of  the  world  in  which  they  have  to  live. 

Quite  consistent  with  all  that  has  gone  before 
is  the  view  that  education  is  necessarily  a  process 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  31 

of  adjustment  between  the  individual  and  his 
environment.  Professor  O'Shea  has  devoted  a 
complete  volume  to  Education  as  Adjustment, 
and  the  whole  subject  has  been  worked  out  in  a 
striking  book  published  by  Dr.  J.  E.  Adamson 
towards  the  end  of  192 1  under  the  title  of  The 
Individual  and  the  Environment.  Here  we  have 
the  educand  treated  in  relation  to  three  worlds  that 
make  up  his  complete  environment :  the  natural 
world,  the  social  world,  and  the  moral  world. 
Obviously  all  the  natural  and  physical  sciences 
belong  to  the  first,  all  the  humanist  studies  to  the 
second,  and  all  the  ethical  and  religious  to  the  third. 
It  is  at  once  evident  that  there  is  a  certain  amount 
of  overlapping  between  the  second  and  the  third 
worlds,  but  Dr.  Adamson  regards  it  as  essential 
to  retain  the  threefold  distinction  in  order  to 
emphasise  the  different  approach  the  educator 
makes  to  each.  In  the  natural  sciences  it  is  a 
matter  of  exploration  :  when  we  approach  the  social 
world  we  are  embarked  on  a  voyage  of  discovery 
in  which  we  are  dealing  with  matters  of  which  we 
ourselves  form  a  part — we  understand  humanism 
because  we  are  human  ;  but  when  it  comes  to 
morals  we  actually  add  something  to  what  we 
study.  It  will  be  seen  that  Dr.  Adamson  adopts 
here  the  attitude  of  Kant,  and  regards  man  as  a 
creator.  Without  treating  us  to  the  full  pomp  and 
circumstance  of  the  categorical  imperative,  he  gets 
from  it  all  the  advantages  it  offers. 

But  from  our  present  standpoint  perhaps  the  most 
striking  position  taken  up  by  Dr.  Adamson  is  that 
bearing  upon  the  influences  exercised  by  the  teacher. 


32  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 


"  Within  that  mysterious  synthetic  activity  through 
which  the  individual  is  at  once  appropriating  and 
contributing  to  his  environment,  forming  and  being 
formed  by  it,  and  which  we  are  considering  under 
the  conception  of  adjustment,  the  teacher  has  neither 
place  nor  part."  ■  This  comes  as  a  shock  to  the 
teacher  who  has  just  been  reproved  by  Monsieur 
Boutroux  for  illegitimately  exercising  an  excessive 
power.  Dr.  Adamson  proclaims  that  his  own  view 
is  not  commonly  held ;  that,  in  fact,  the  opposite 
view  is  almost  universal.  This  does  not  disturb 
him  in  the  least,  as  he  proceeds  cheerfully  to  attack 
the  doctrine  that  the  educative  process  is  bi-polar. 
He  cannot  deny  that  it  is  in  a  way  bi-polar,  but  he 
regrets  that  it  is  so,  and  holds  that  this  way  of  regard- 
ing the  relation  is  unsound,  and  leads  to  evil  conse- 
quences. He  is  driven  to  "  assert  the  altogether 
subsidiary,  ancillary,  and  transient  personal  bi- 
polarity  of  teacher  and  pupil,  or  educator  and 
educand."  He  maintains  that  education  supplies 
a  case  of  tri-polarity.  "  One  pole  should  be  the 
conscious  process,  the  centre  of  evolution  ;  the 
second  should  be  the  fact,  quality,  truth,  or  act 
which  is  the  focus  of  attention ;  and  the  third 
the  reflective  guiding  activity  of  the  master."  * 
With  this  the  practical  teacher  may  find  no  serious 
fault,  though  he  may  have  a  difficulty  in  seeing  how 
a  fact  can  be  a  pole.  He  will  even  admit  that  the 
bi-polar  relation  between  educator  and  educand 
is  "  highly  dangerous,"  since  it  lends  colour  to  the 
view  that  the  teacher-personality  should  dominate 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  27. 

2  Op.  cit.,  p.  342. 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  33 

the  pupil-personality,  whereas  the  adjustment  to 
environment  should  be  carried  out  as  much  as 
possible  by  the  pupil's  own  activity  and  initiative. 
We  follow  sympathetically  Dr.  Adamson's  argument 
for  the  non-interference  of  the  master,  and  we  look 
benevolently  on  the  picture  he  draws  of  master  and 
pupil  "  plodding  side  by  side  on  the  same  road," 
but  we  have  within  us  the  ineradicable  conviction 
that  of  the  two  plodders  it  is  the  master  who  has 
dominated  and  always  will  dominate  the  situation. 

The  practical  question  that  emerges  with  all  the 
more  urgency  from  this  excursus  into  current  theory 
is  :  What  is  the  function  of  the  school  in  the  process  | 
of  the  educand's  adjustment  to  the  various  worlds  ?  ' 
Obviously,  it  must  provide  experience  in  dealing 
with  the  content  of  the  Adamsonian  three  worlds. 
The  school  curriculum  must  provide,  in  an  intensive 
form,  means  of  acquiring  experience  of  all  three. 
An  analysis  of  the  school  curriculum  such  as  is  found 
in  Mr.  B.  Branford's  Janus  and  Vesta  l  shows  that 
in  its  essentials  it  does  correspond  to  the  threefold 
classification,  and  justifies  us  in  accepting  Professor 
Franklin  Jones'  principle  that  "  The  course  of  study 
is  a  selection  of  those  impersonal  experiences  of  the 
race  which  we  believe  will  be  most  valuable  to  the 
life  of  the  child."  ■  He  invites  us  to  catalogue  all  our 
own  experiences  for  a  single  day  under  the  heads  of 
the  various  school  subjects,  such  as  Geography, 
History,  Mathematics,  Physics,  Languages,  and 
assures  us  that  we  shall  find  life  a  very  complex 
business,  but  that  it  will  be  possible  to  discover 

1  Chapter  X,  p.  128,  ff. 

2  Principles  of  Education,  p.  10. 

3 


34  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

a  niche  in  actual  experience  for  most  of  our 
apparently  abstract  school  subjects. 

It  does  not  follow  that  such  a  comparison  of  what 
we  learn  in  school  and  what  we  experience  in  life 
should  lead  to  a  quantitative  correspondence  between 
the  two.  Here  Herbert  Spencer  helps  us  greatly 
by  the  magnificent  blunder  he  made  in  his  appor- 
tionment of  school-time  to  the  artistic  and  general 
humane  subjects.  Since  these  occupy  the  leisure 
moments  of  our  life,  he  holds  that  they  should  get 
only  the  spare  time  during  the  educational  course. 
There  is  really  no  fixed  ratio  between  the  amount 
of  time  spent  on  a  subject  in  school  and  its 
importance  in  post-school  life  as  judged  by  utilitarian 
standards.  We  have  to  keep  clearly  in  view  the  three 
worlds  for  which  we  are  preparing,  and  we  must  give 
each  its  fair  chance. 

Teachers  are  too  familiar  with  the  business  man's 
demands  that  he  should  be  supplied  from  school 
with  pupils  who  are  ready  to  begin  at  once  the 
mechanical  work  of  his  office.  This  practical  person 
believes  himself  to  be  particularly  modest  in  his 
demands.  He  does  not  ask  much :  merely  the  ability 
to  write  a  decent  rapid  hand,  to  count  swiftly  and 
accurately,  to  spell  correctly,  to  compose  an  intelli- 
gible letter,  to  know  the  commercial  geography 
of  the  world,  and  to  do  what  he  is  told  without 
asking  for  explanations.  In  many  cases  all  these 
demands  may  be  met  by  an  ordinary  pupil  if  he  is 
allowed  a  little  time  to  settle  down  into  the  condi- 
tions of  real  business  life.  But  apart  from  the 
actual  skill  required,  there  is  need  to  provide  for  the 
fitting  into  the  particular  environment  to  which 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  35 


each  pupil  is  called.  The  school  preparation  must 
necessarily  be  general,  and  the  business  people 
have  to  make  up  their  mind  that  a  certain  small 
amount  of  teaching  work  must  in  the  last  resort 
be  left  to  them.  Some  years  ago  the  Education 
Committee  of  the  London  County  Council  arranged 
for  a  series  of  conferences  with  employers  of  various 
types  in  order  to  get  from  "  the  masters  "  what  they 
really  wanted  from  the  schools.  The  experiment 
was  successful.  No  doubt  rather  exorbitant  demands 
were  in  some  cases  made,  and  there  was  the  inevit- 
able tendency  to  do  more  in  the  way  of  pointing 
out  defects  than  of  suggesting  remedies.  But  the 
exchange  of  views  had  an  excellent  moral  effect : 
the  employers  were  found  to  be  much  more  sym- 
pathetic in  the  mass  then  they  had  proved  as 
individual  critics,  the  teachers  on  their  side  learning 
some  things  that  proved  to  their  advantage.  In 
passing  it  was  found  that  some  weaknesses  of  human 
nature  were  laid  to  the  charge  of  education. 

On  May  28,  1919,  there  came  into  being  a  society 
that  could  not  satisfy  itself  with  a  shorter  title 
than  the  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Edu- 
cation in  Industry  and  Commerce.  Even  this 
garrulous  description  does  not  remove  ambiguity, 
for  suspicious  folk  are  enquiring  whether  the  Associ- 
ation exists  to  promote  industrial  and  commercial 
education,  or  to  further  the  general  educational 
interests  of  those  who  are  engaged  in  industry  and 
commerce.  The  suspicion  is  supplied  by  Labour, 
as  is  not  surprising,  since  the  Association  is  made  up 
of  employers  and  their  educational  assistants  and 
advisers.     A  glance  at  the  published  aims  of  the 


36  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 


Association  shows  that,  while  all  kinds  of  education 
are  taken  into  account,  the  bias  is  on  those  forms 
that  are  usually  connected  in  men's  minds  with 
general  culture.  In  the  words  of  its  circular,  the 
aims  of  the  Association  are — "  (a)  The  encourage- 
ment of  definite  educational  work  in  [we  take  in 
to  mean  in  connection  with]  industrial  and  commercial 
undertakings ;  (b)  the  general  advancement  of 
education  by  means  of  (1)  the  printing  and  circula- 
tion of  papers  ;  (2)  investigation  and  research  ;  (3) 
consultation  with  public  educational  authorities  ; 

(4)  co-operation    with    other    educational   bodies ; 

(5)  the  holding  of  periodical  conferences."  Nothing 
could  be  more  straightforward  than  this  statement 
of  broad  aims,  and  even  Labour  will  find  it  hard 
to  discover  traces  of  the  cloven  hoof  of  capitalism. 

Yet  Labour  justly  believes  it  necessary  to  hold 
a  watching  brief  for  all  educational  matters.  It  is 
intensely  anxious  about  the  work  done  in  schools, 
and  is  always  afraid  that  the  children  will  be  trained 
merely  in  the  interests  of  capital  so  as  to  become 
better  cogs  in  the  industrial  wheel.  A  wise  scrutiny 
here  is  quite  commendable,  for  acquisitive  human 
nature  is  very  open  to  temptation.  But  there 
is  a  decency  to  be  observed  in  such  matters,  and  a 
firm  hand  should  be  kept  on  enthusiastic  young 
partisans  who  let  their  zeal  outrun  their  common 
sense,  to  the  great  disadvantage  of  Labour.  There 
are  many  things  we  have  all  to  be  taught  quite 
apart  from  our  status  as  determined  by  the  balance 
in  our  bank-books.  At  a  meeting  of  teachers  in 
London  in  January  1922,  a  lecturer  dealing  with  the 
sober  subject,  "  What  is  the  Good  of  Education  ?  " 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  37 

made  the  modest  claim  that  the  schools  at  least 
trained  the  pupils  in  habits  of  punctuality,  regularity, 
thoroughness,  industry,  and  discipline.  One  would 
have  thought  this  at  least  a  blameless  list.  But 
a  labour  extremist  is  reported  to  have  taken  up 
the  matter  on  the  spot,  with  the  exclamation, 
"  What  an  appalling  list  of  virtues  !  They  are  the 
very  things  I  am  trying  to  get  the  people  to  abandon." 
He  urged  upon  the  teachers  present  to  rebel — 
he  did  not  say  against  what  in  particular,  but  just 
to  rebel — in  order  to  acquire  the  power  of  teaching 
"  the  rebel  virtues,"  which,  however,  he  did  not 
specify.  Naturally,  solid  Labour  cannot  be  held 
responsible  for  such  views,  any  more  than  it  can 
be  identified  with  the  obscurantist  opinions  of  a 
very  positive  person  in  the  pages  of  Mr.  Stephen 
Reynolds'  Seems  So  : 

"  You  may  learn  summut  at  school,  or  you  may  not ; 
precious  little  o'  it's  any  use  ;  but  I  reckon  you  learns 
manlihood  and  womanlihood  after  you  leaves  school,  an' 
the  sooner  you  begin  to  learn  this  the  better.  Education 
is  the  biggest  fraud  ever  forced  upon  us." 

Between  these  two  extreme  courses  Labour  is 
holding  a  very  even  keel,  and  seems  little  likely  to 
go  far  wrong.  The  Workers'  Educational  Associa- 
tion is  probably  one  of  the  most  steadying  influences 
at  present  at  work  in  the  educational  world.  Labour 
is  fully  alive  to  the  possibilities  of  education  :  it 
is  a  pity  that  it  seems  more  alive  to  its  possibilities 
for  evil  than  its  possibilities  for  good. 

In  spite  of  all  the  successful  work  of  Mr.  Albert 
Mansbridge  and  his  colleagues  in  the  W.  E.  A., 
in  spite  of  the  renewed  vigour  of  Ruskin  College, 


38  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

few  working  men  have  heard  the  name  of  Kant  j 
still  fewer  have  read  a  line  of  his  work  either  in 
German  or  in  English.  Yet  in  one  important  par- 
ticular the  workers  are  Kantians  to  a  man.  When 
Kant  leaves  pure  metaphysics  and  comes  to  living 
men  and  women,  he  makes  an  irresistible  appeal 
to  the  working  man  by  maintaining  that  a  human 
being  must  always  be  treated  as  an  end  in  himself, 
and  not  as  a  mere  means.  Here  working  people 
are  with  the  philosopher  heart  and  soul.  He  ex- 
presses exactly  what  they  want.  They  have  always 
resented,  and  with  justice,  the  hideous  synecdoche 
that  labels  them  as  hands.  But  while  the  world 
as  a  whole  is  with  the  workman  in  his  rejection  of  the 
attitude  that  treats  him  as  a  mere  tool,  he  must  not 
forget  that  after  all  he  is  a  tool.  No  doubt  he  ought 
to  be  treated  as  an  end  in  himself,  but  he  is  at  the 
same  time  a  means.  We  all  are.  We  must  not 
overlook  the  importance  of  the  word  merely.  We 
may  be  in  the  highest  and  truest  sense  ends,  and  yet 
in  certain  connections  we  may  be  means.  However 
much  soul  and  individuality  a  working  man  may 
possess,  he  has  also  hands,  and  in  the  ultimate  resort 
he  is  in  one  connection  a  "  hand."  Unfortunately, 
the  word  has  acquired  a  sinister  connotation,  and 
it  is  probably  bad  taste  to  use  it  in  industry,  but 
we  must  not  burke  the  fact  that  it  represents  a 
truth.  It  happens  that  employers  have  not  hit 
upon  the  use  of  the  word  "  head  "  to  represent  those 
of  their  employees  who  work  mainly  with  their 
brains.  But  there  would  be  nothing  really  bad  in 
an  employer  speaking  figuratively  about  his  "  hands" 
in  the  workshop,  and  his  "  heads  "  in  the  laboratory. 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  39 

To  be  sure,  the  psychologist  comes  along  and  pours 
oil  on  the  troubled  waters  by  assuring  us  that  we 
cannot  separate  handwork  from  brain  work,  and 
we  are  only  too  willing  to  drop  the  callous  figure  of 
the  "  hand."  But  if  spirit  and  matter  are  so  in- 
separable in  our  nature  that  philosophers  have 
recently  hit  upon  the  compound  word  soul-body 
to  emphasise  this  solidarity,  there  is  all  the  more 
need  to  admit  that  we  cannot  educate  one  part  of 
ourselves  without  educating  the  whole. 

Employers  are  doubtless  right  in  thinking  that 
if  they  secure  the  education  of  the  workman  on  the 
personal  and  spiritual  side  they  are  having  him 
educated  all  round,  and  that  in  consequence  he  will 
become  a  more  valuable  means  towards  their  ends. 
When  we  realise  that  we  are  all — employers  and 
employees  alike — both  means  and  ends,  there  can 
be  no  objection  to  our  being  so  trained  that,  while 
we  become  more  valuable  to  ourselves  as  ends,  we  are 
at  the  same  time  improved  as  means. 

So  long  as  the  employers  recognise  the  person- 
ality of  the  employee,  and  do  their  best  to  develop 
that  by  means  of  education,  they  are  entitled  to  any 
by-product  that  may  accrue.  It  has  to  be  remem- 
bered that  increased  mechanical  skill,  however 
produced,  does  not  harm  the  workman — from  some 
Labour  complaints  one  would  almost  think  it  did — 
so  he  suffers  no  disadvantage  if  his  general  education 
incidentally  increases  his  efficiency  in  mechanical 
operations.  On  the  other  hand,  general  education 
both  enables  the  workman  to  deal  more  intelligently 
with  his  mechanical  work  and  to  invent  ways  of 
reducing  the  amount  of  the  mechanical  element 


40  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

it  involves.  The  old  idea  among  callous 
employers  was  that  education  was  not  only  unneces- 
sary for  workmen,  but  was  positively  injurious  to 
their  efficiency.  What  they  wanted  was  a  man  who 
could  do  the  mechanical  work  and  not  think  about 
it.  "We  don't  want  our  girls  to  think  ;  we  want 
them  to  do  their  work,"  was  a  complaint  formerly 
common  among  the  more  brutal  types  of  foremen, 
and  even  to-day  it  is  not  unfrequently  heard.  They 
wanted  the  workmen  and  workwomen  to  be  mere 
means.  The  new  spirit  admits,  even  from  the  lowest 
standpoint,  the  need  to  recognise  the  "  end  "  in 
every  human  being.  From  mere  self-interest  the 
employers  have  been  led  to  see  the  justice  and 
practical  value  of  the  Kantian  Kingdom  of  Ends. 

In  some  directions  it  is  beginning  to  be  recognised 
that  factories  and  counting-houses  must  take  a 
share  in  bridging  the  gulf  between  the  generalised 
work  of  the  schools  and  the  particularised  work  of 
real  life.  Some  book-keepers,  for  example,  declare 
that  they  would  much  rather  have  young  people 
come  from  school  with  no  book-keeping  at  all  than 
with  the  kind  they  get  there,  for  the  school-learnt 
variety  only  causes  confusion  in  the  stream  of  real 
business,  where  almost  every  house  has  peculiarities 
in  its  methods.  Other  business  people,  however, 
like  their  school  material  in  not  quite  such  a  raw 
state,  and  want  pupils  to  come  with  a  knowledge 
of  at  least  the  principles  on  which  business  and 
industrial  affairs  are  carried  on.  Accordingly,  it 
is  sometimes  arranged  that  for  a  month  or  two  before 
taking  up  business  life  pupils  in  a  good  secondary 
school  should  specialise  on  office  routine.     No  great 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  41 

harm  is  done  to  the  school  course,  though  many 
teachers  complain  with  some  bitterness  that  they 
are  thus  deprived  of  the  opportunity  of  putting  the 
final  touches  to  an  education  that  could  be  other- 
wise nicely  rounded  off.  On  the  other  hand,  many 
head-mistresses  are  worried  because  they  are  not 
permitted  to  add  book-keeping,  shorthand,  and  type- 
writing in  their  higher  departments,  in  order  to  meet 
the  needs  of  girls  who,  if  they  cannot  get  these 
subjects  at  their  secondary  school,  will  have  to  go 
to  private  academies  that  make  a  specialty  of  what 
is  called  "  commercial  training.' ' 

Progressive  teachers  are,  indeed,  far  from  having 
neglected  the  view  that  they  have  to  prepare  at 
the  same  time  for  the  school  world  and  for  the 
outer  world.  The  two  worlds  cannot  be  kept  apart 
even  in  a  boarding  school,  much  less  in  a  day  school. 
A  secondary  girls'  school  in  London  has  for  motto 
Non  scholce  sed  vitce,  and  does  not  claim  anything 
peculiar  to  itself  in  the  view  expressed.  In  truth, 
if  the  school  wanted  to  make  its  real  meaning  baldly 
plain  it  would  have  to  spoil  the  crispness  of  its  motto 
by  expanding  it  into  Non  solum  scholce,  sed  etiam 
vitce.  Whether  the  teachers  will  it  or  not,  the  school 
almost  always,  in  the  minds  of  the  pupils,  subtends 
a  bigger  angle  than  the  world  of  the  future  or 
the  outside  world  of  the  present.  To  the  school 
pupil,  in  Wordsworthian  phrase,  it  is  the  school 
world  that  is  too  much  with  him.  But  it  is  possible, 
and  certainly  desirable,  to  keep  him  in  touch  with 
both  worlds. 

One  of  the  points  of  contact  between  the  two 
worlds  in  the  case  of  day  schools  is  formed  by  home- 


42  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

lessons.  All  teachers  are  aware  of  the  keen  interest 
parents  take  in  this  matter.  We  know  that  home- 
lessons  are  not  popular  with  boys,  and  there  is  a 
grave  suspicion  that  even  girls  are  not  enthusiastic 
about  them  ;  but  we  do  not  sufficiently  realise  that 
ordinary  parents  regard  them  with  loathing.  Home 
arrangements  are  frequently  upset  by  the  inroads 
the  teachers  make  on  the  home  leisure  of  the  pupils. 
Careless  and  indifferent  parents  simply  do  not  allow 
school  demands  to  interfere  with  their  convenience, 
but  even  those  who  are  keen  for  their  children's 
advancement  would  willingly  cut  off  home-lessons 
altogether,  if  they  felt  that  they  could  do  so  without 
serious  disadvantage  to  the  future  of  their  children. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  competitive 
spirit  does  much  to  maintain  the  parental  toleration 
of  home-lessons.  Each  father  feels  that  if  he  dis- 
courages homework  for  his  child,  the  youngsters 
from  other  homes  will  get  the  start  as  compared, 
with  his  boy,  and  that  is  not  to  be  tolerated.  The 
fear  of  a  handicap  has  done  much  to  prevent  revolt 
against  the  present  homework  system.  But  revolt 
is  in  the  air,  and  it  sometimes  gets  unexpected 
support  from  within  the  teachers'  own  camp. 
In  her  preface  to  Supervised  Study  in  English,  Miss 
A.  Laura  McGregor  maintains  that  school-work 
should  be  so  carefully  organised  that — 

"  the  day's  work  can  be  effectively  accomplished  within 
the  school.  .  .  .  The  school  must  undoubtedly  assume 
responsibility  for  such  '  avocational  guidance '  as  will 
lead  to  the  worthy  use  of  leisure  time  ;  but  the  mere  assign- 
ment of  tasks  is  an  encroachment  upon  it  which  should  be 
steadily  resisted." 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  43 

The  suggestion  here  is  one  that  meets  with  the 
approval  of  many  parents.  The  idea  is  that  the 
present  school  day  is  not  too  long — to  put  matters 
very  gently  from  the  parents'  standpoint — and  could 
be  materially  extended  without  harm  to  anybody^ 
Why  not,  then,  add  the  two  or  three  hours  that  are 
at  present  taken  up  with  home-study  to  the  regular 
day's  work  at  school  ?  The  pupil  could  in  that  case 
leave  school  at  the  end  of  each  day  with  a  clear 
conscience  and  a  light  heart,  and  no  longer  prove 
a  nuisance  to  all  the  grown-ups  at  home. 

To  be  sure,  there  are  certain  objections.  The 
long  school  day  might  prove  too  exacting  for  the 
young  people,  the  new  plans  might  interfere  with 
meal-hour  arrangements  at  home,  distance  from 
school  might  make  a  late  return  by  train  at  the  crush 
hours  undesirable.  Then  there  are  those  who  warn 
us  that  home-study  has  the  very  specific  function 
of  encouraging  independent  work  on  the  pupil's 
own  account. 

These  objections  are  not  insuperable,  and  the  line 
of  development  will  almost  certainly  be  a  compromise 
by  which  the  school  day  will  be  lengthened  in  some 
measure,  while  the  internal  organisation  will  be  so 
modified  as  to  make  the  school  a  much  more  human 
institution  than  it  has  hitherto  been.  The  newer 
methods  provide  a  clue  to  the  path  to  be  followed  in 
our  search  for  a  more  practical  form  of  education, 
and  one  that  will  fit  better  into  social  requirements. 
If  it  be  true  that  we  teach  too  much,  may  it  not  be 
possible,  by  cutting  down  the  periods  for  actual 
instruction,  to  make  room  for  as  much  preparation 
in  school  as  shall  remove  the  necessity  for  homework? 


44  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

There  is  a  growing  impression  among  the  teachers  of 
this  country — it  has  been  for  some  time  openly 
expressed  in  the  United  States — that  we  spend  far 
too  much  time  on  the  teaching  of  the  purely  pre- 
liminary subjects.  Quite  a  number  of  teachers 
think  that  the  three  R's  should  not  be  taught  in  the 
formal  and  systematic  way  at  present  in  vogue, 
by  which  they  are  treated  as  substantive  parts  of 
the  curriculum,  but  should  be  dealt  with  as  tool 
subjects  that  get  mastered  by  being  used.  Such 
critics  say  that  they  should  be  taken  in  the  pupil's 
stride.  Others,  of  course,  are  ready  to  object 
that  the  foundations  of  these  subjects  need 
very  careful  treatment  to  prevent  the  formation 
of  almost  ineradicable  bad  habits  in  phonetics, 
in  the  fundamental  ideas  of  number,  in  the  mani- 
pulation of  the  pen.  The  truth  appears  to  be  that, 
making  full  allowance  for  a  fairly  scientific  and 
systematic  treatment,  these  subjects  could  be  taught 
in  a  much  shorter  time  than  at  present.  It  is  plain 
that  the  newer  methods  will  certainly  favour  the 
more  rapid  acquirement  of  the  three  R's,  since  they 
are  to  be  put  into  use  at  a  much  earlier  stage  than 
formerly.  The  example  of  the  child  in  the  educated 
home  is  significant  here.  He  is  accustomed  from 
the  very  beginning  to  use  the  ordinary  means  of 
communication  by  voice,  pen,  and  pencil.  The  child 
in  most  poor  homes  treats  pen,  pencil,  and  paper  as 
things  apart,  things  that  belong  to  another  world, 
the  world  of  school. 

There  is  one  feature  about  the  teaching  of  these 
instrumental  subjects  by  themselves  as  separate 
studies  that  is  exceedingly  instructive  in  relation 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  45 


to  the  newer  developments  of  the  curriculum.  It  is 
generally  taken  for  granted  that  by  devoting  a 
great  deal  of  attention  to  them  more  rapid  progress 
will  be  made  than  if  they  were  treated  incidentally 
as  part  of  a  much  wider  group  of  studies.  Experi- 
ence is  quite  against  this  view,  as  is  shown  by  what 
happened  in  the  case  of  elementary  school  children 
long  before  any  of  the  newer  complicated  curricula 
were  thought  of.  At  the  early  times  reading  and 
writing  were  the  most  important  of  the  three  R's, 
and,  of  the  two,  reading  was  by  far  the  more  import- 
ant. So  much  was  this  the  case  that  sometimes  the 
schools  became  little  more  than  reading  schools, 
and  when  developments  took  place,  and  innovators 
persisted  in  bringing  in  other  subjects — not  only 
arithmetic,  but  composition  and  rudimentary  geo- 
graphy and  history — critics  were  prompt  with  their 
warnings  that  the  promoters  of  such  schools  were 
sacrificing  the  substance  for  the  shadow,  and  by 
seizing  too  much  were  in  danger  of  losing  what  they 
already  had.  In  other  words,  reading  would  suffer 
if  much  of  the  time  formerly  devoted  to  it  was 
transferred  to  other  subjects.  Actual  experience 
was  far  from  bearing  out  this  contention.  Mr. 
Moseley,  Inspector  of  Schools,  in  his  report  on  Dean 
Dawes'  King's  Somborne  School,  writes  : 

"  Here,  where  so  many  other  things  are  taught  besides 
reading,  the  children  are  found  in  advance,  in  reading, 
of  other  schools,  in  the  majority  of  which  scarcely  anything 
else  is  taught."  x 

And  again  he  generalises  further  : 

"  The  singular  slowness  with  which  the  children  of  our 

1  Quoted  by  Sir  John  Lubbock,  Addresses,  p.  71. 


46  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 


national  schools  learn  to  read  is  in  some  degree  to  be 
attributed  to  the  unwise  concentration  of  the  labours  of 
the  school  on  that  single  subject." 

It  will  be  well  not  to  lose  sight  of  these  references 
in  dealing  with  the  apparently  overwide  distribution 
of  subjects  in  some  of  the  school  courses  of  to-day, 
and  those  proposed  for  to-morrow. 

But  it  does  not  follow  that  any  saving  that  may 
result  from  better  methods  will  bring  any  relief 
to  the  selfish  parent  in  the  way  of  greater  freedom 
from  school  influences  at  home.  If  better  organisa- 
tion on  the  Dalton  or  other  plans  develops  interest 
in  school  activities,  the  tendency  will  be  all  towards 
carrying  the  interest  of  the  school  into  the  home. 
For  one  of  the  main  purposes  of  the  newer  schemes 
is  to  bring  the  pupil's  school- work  into  more  direct 
relation  to  what  is  going  on  in  the  out-of- school 
world.  The  child's  life  is  to  be  organised  so  that  it 
becomes  a  genuine  unity.  The  school  and  the  world 
are  to  be  so  treated  that  he  realises  that  he  is  living 
in  one  universe,  not  in  two. 

However  successful  teachers  may  be  in  creating 
this  unity  of  conception,  there  will  always  come  the 
moment  of  shock  that  necessarily  accompanies 
the  passage  from  the  mixed- school-and- world  uni- 
verse to  the  universe  made  up  of  the  out-of-school 
world  alone.  It  is  futile  to  maintain  that  there 
need  be  no  real  shock,  that  the  passage  should  be  so 
prepared  for  and  anticipated  that  when  it  comes 
everything  should  go  on^  with  no  serious  break. 
No  doubt  a  well-regulated  educational  scheme 
will  minimise  the  perils  of  the  passage  from  school 
to  what  is  classed  as  "  the  real  world."     But  a  shock 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  47 

there  must  be.  It  is  useless  to  appeal  to  Nature 
as  old  Comenius  used  to  do.  Nature,  he  told  us, 
makes  no  leaps,  but  proceeds  step  by  step.  No 
doubt,  but  she  does  do  a  gambol  now  and  again. 
What  about  our  coming  into  the  world  at  all : 
is  not  that  a  bit  of  a  leap  ?  We  can  hardly  think 
that  the  imago  comes  out  of  the  chrysalis-state 
without  a  certain  amount  of  excitement.  The 
gradual  humanising  of  our  school  courses  will  cer- 
tainly minimise  the  trouble  of  passing  from  school 
to  life-work,  but  at  the  best  the  change  will  involve 
an  upset  that  educators  will  do  well  to  take  into 
account. 

We  have  seen  that  certain  progressive  teachers 
are  anxious  to  make  such  modifications  towards 
the  end  of  the  school  course  as  shall  meet  this  trouble 
half-way,  and  that  there  are  others  who  resent  any 
attempt  to  introduce  outside  practical  interests 
into  the  school  course.  There  is  a  very  general 
opinion  that  the  definite  preparation  for  life-work 
should  be  deferred  as  long  as  possible.  To  put  it 
bluntly,  the  principle  of  many  writers  on  education 
appears  to  be  to  discover  how  long  a  pupil  can  be 
educated  in  general  without  ultimate  damage  to 
his  future  vocation,  and  to  keep  him  at  general 
education  till  that  point  has  been  reached.  In 
other  words,  how  long  can  we  afford  to  continue 
the  education  of  the  pupil  without  coming  to  the 
point  about  his  future  work  ?  Without  doubt, 
social  prestige  has  often  had  a  great  deal  to  do 
with  the  determination  of  the  content  of  what  is 
called  a  liberal  education.  The  long  nails  of  the 
Chinese  aristocrat  are  not  without  their  lesson  to 


48  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

the  educational  thinker,  and  direct  him  to  the 
consideration  of  the  fallacy  that  assumes  culture 
and  utility  to  be  incompatible.  Many  people  enter- 
tain the  notion  that  uselessness  is  of  the  essence  of 
a  liberal  education.  We  do  not  forget  the  mathe- 
matician whose  joy  at  the  discovery  of  a  dainty 
little  theorem  was  enhanced  by  his  being  able 
to  exclaim  :  "  And,  thank  God,  there  can  be  no 
use  made  of  it !  "  Last  century,  during  one  of  the 
outside  attacks  to  which  the  universities  are  periodi- 
cally subjected,  a  defence  appeared  in  Blackwood' s 
Magazine  in  which  the  writer  soberly  and  with  no 
trace  of  humour  maintained  the  thesis  that  a  suffi- 
cient justification  of  the  ancient  seats  of  learning 
is  to  be  found  in  the  uselessness  of  what  they 
teach. 

What  underlies  all  this  is  a  confusion  about  the 
meaning  of  the  liberal  or  free  studies.  These  are 
the  studies  of  a  free  man,  studies  that  are  not 
selected  merely  because  the  material  needs  of  life 
compel  us  to  undertake  them.  But  the  fact  that  a 
subject  is  capable  of  practical  application  to  even 
the  lower  wants  of  life  need  not  degrade  it  to  the 
level  of  an  illiberal  study.  What  the  advocates  of 
the  useless  really  want  to  praise  is  a  totally  different 
thing — disinterestedness.  We  can  study  mathe- 
matics in  the  spirit  of  either  a  philosopher  or  a 
huckster.  We  do  or  do  not  get  the  cultural  value 
of  the  subject  according  to  the  spirit  in  which  we 
approach  it.  A  man  who  has  mastered  the  higher 
mathematics  at  Cambridge  with  no  baser  aim  than 
the  attainment  of  a  good  degree,  does  not  lose  the 
culture  his  subject  has  brought  him  when  he  after- 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  49 

wards  applies  his  knowledge  to  the  lighting  of  a  city, 
or  the  draining  of  a  swamp.  How  does  the  matter 
stand  in  the  case  of  a  man  who  deliberately  studies 
mathematics  with  the  deliberate  ultimate  purpose 
of  applying  his  knowledge  to  just  such  things  ? 

We  may  find  help  in  Lord  Avebury's  distinction 
between  knife-and-fork  studies  and  those  others 
that  may  be  called,  by  an  extension  of  his  figure, 
dinner-studies.  The  first  group  are  obviously  in- 
strumental as  compared  with  the  second,  and  it 
would  appear  on  the  surface,  at  any  rate,  that  all 
instrumental  studies  are  really  Brotwissenschaften, 
bread-and-butter  studies.  But  a  little  investiga- 
tion convinces  us  that  the  matter  is  not  quite  so 
simple  as  that.  For  the  same  subject  may  be  either 
a  knife-and-fork  study  or  a  dinner-study  according 
to  circumstances.  Botany,  for  example,  as  studied 
by  a  girl  in  the  fifth  or  sixth  form  of  a  secondary 
school,  is  a  dinner  subject  with  a  good  cultural 
value  ;  whereas  the  same  subject  has  the  purely 
knife-and-fork  function  of  enabling  a  medical  student 
to  get  through  his  examinations  and  make  a  satis- 
factory use  of  his  materia  medica.  The  crucial 
question  is  :  Can  the  medical  student  also  get  from 
his  studies  in  botany  any  of  the  culture  value,  or  is 
that  for  ever  denied  him  because  of  the  utilitarian 
motive  that  no  doubt  in  the  first  instance  directs 
him  to  this  subject  ? 

It  has  been  argued  that  if  a  student  at  the  time 
of  undertaking  the  study  of  botany  did  not  realise 
that  it  was  to  be  of  professional  utility,  it  might 
possibly  yield  to  him  its  culture  value.  But  the 
implication  of  this  curious  argument  is  that  somehow 
4 


50  The  Child ,  the  School,  and  the  World 

or  other  the  future  use  to  be  made  of  the  knowledge 
acquired  contaminates  the  study  as  a  part  of  a 
liberal  education.  In  arguing  against  this  view, 
one  has  the  unpleasant  feeling  of  being  among  those 
who  sin  against  the  light.  The  taint  of  vocational- 
ism  is  thrown  over  any  subject  that  forms  a  definite 
and  necessary  part  in  the  preparation  for  a  specific 
mode  of  earning  a  livelihood.  For,  after  all  the 
discussions  about  the  exact  meaning  of  vocation  in 
connection  with  education,  this  fact  of  being  con- 
nected with  the  means  of  making  a  livelihood  is 
found  to  be  the  ultimate  differentia.  The  popular 
idea  of  a  liberal  education  seems  to  be  one  in 
which  the  educand  studies  certain  subjects  set  for 
him  without  having  the  least  idea  of  making  use 
of  any  one  of  them  in  connection  with  his  future 
occupation,  if  that  occupation  is  going  to  provide 
him  with  the  means  of  living.  Yet  in  actual  life  no 
objection  is  raised  to  the  demand  that  an  intending 
clergyman  should  first  obtain  an  arts  degree  as  a 
guarantee  of  general  culture,  before  proceeding  to 
his  theological  studies.  The  fact  that  his  arts 
studies  have  a  direct  value  in  preparing  him  for  his 
future  work  is  not  regarded  as  detracting  from 
their  culture  value  in  his  case.  Why,  then,  should 
the  engineer's  mathematics,  or  the  medical  man's 
chemistry,  be  ranked  differently  ? 

g'he  truth  is  that  all  education  must  affect  our 
ire  life  either  adversely  or  favourably,  and  to 
t  extent  all  education  is  vocational,  as  preparing 
or  the  vocation  of  life.  Existence  as  a  country 
gentleman,  or  as  a  leisured  member  of  society  in  a 
city,  is  a  vocation  and  has  to  be  prepared  for  like 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  51 

any  other.  If  some  of  our  schools  are  specially 
fitted  to  prepare  for  this  state  of  life,  they  are  none 
the  less  vocational  for  that.  Thomas  Arnold's 
claim  that  the  aim  of  his  school  was  to  send  out 
Christian  gentlemen  in  no  way  removed  Rugby  from 
the  list  of  vocational  schools — it  only  specified  the 
kind  of  vocation  for  which  it  prepared.  To  be  sure, 
the  introduction  of  the  idea  of  earning  a  livelihood 
involves  an  important  technical  difference.  The 
Christian  gentleman  may  want  to  be  a  doctor  or  a 
lawyer.  He  may  even  want  to  be  an  auctioneer  or 
a  plumber.  The  practical  problem  is  how  far  the 
preparation  for  the  two  states  may  be  combined 
without  mutual  disturbance.  It  is  pure  ostrich 
philosophy  to  maintain  that  culture  demands  a 
deliberate  neglect  of  all  considerations  of  vocation, 
till  a  good  liberal  education  has  been  obtained.  It 
sounds  effective  to  say  that  at  school  we  are  not 
training  an  engineer,  a  doctor,  a  clergyman,  or  a 
journalist,  but  a  man.  Yet  the  manhood  of  the 
pupil  is  in  no  way  compromised  by  giving  his 
studies  such  a  bias  as  shall  prove  of  value  to  him  in 
his  struggle  for  life.  It  may  be  desirable  to  put 
off  the  incidence  of  the  vocational  as  long  as  possible, 
and  it  may  be  that  certain  favoured  groups  are  able 
to  defer  it  till  school-days  are  entirely  over.  The 
important  point  to  be  made  is  that  whatever  cultural 
elements  appear  in  the  curriculum  are  not  at  any 
stage  contaminated  either  by  the  fact  that  they  are 
brought  into  contact  with  recognised  vocational 
elements  or  that  they  themselves  are  to  be  utilised 
in  vocational  work  at  a  later  stage. 

It  may  clear  up  matters  to  examine  how  vocational 


52  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

education  is  at  present  dealt  with  in  our  schools. 
It  will  be  found  that  there  are  four  degrees  of 
intensity  in  the  teachers'  attitude  towards  vocational 
work.  There  are,  first  of  all,  those  who  timidly  add 
a  three  months'  top-dressing  at  the  end  of  what 
they  like  to  believe  is  a  full  cultural  course.  The 
next  group  take  the  matter  more  seriously,  and 
introduce  admittedly  vocational  subjects  from  the 
middle  of  the  upper  school  on  to  the  end  of  the 
course.  In  America  this  group  goes  a  good  deal 
farther  than  in  England.  Not  because  they  value 
culture  less,  but  because  they  find  that  the  only 
way  to  save  the  cultural  is  to  make  friends  with  the 
mammon  of  vocationalism.  The  practical  demands 
of  parents  and  employers  must  be  met  at  least  half- 
way, for  if  this  is  not  done  then  the  High  Schools 
will  be  completely  cut  out  by  the  various  com- 
mercial and  craft  schools  that  are  being  started  all 
over  the  American  continent.1  Experience,  in  fact, 
is  actually  driving  teachers  who  pride  themselves 
on  their  cultural  leanings  to  fall  in  with  this  half- 
and-half  arrangement.  Frequently,  they  adopt  the 
plan  timidly,  and  soothe  their  consciences  with  the 
suggestion  that  they  teach  the  principles  rather  than 
the  practice  of  the  vocations  in  question. 

The  third  group  will  have  none  of  these  half- 
measures.  They  claim  that  vocational  education 
must  be  real.  All  this  talk  about  teaching  the 
principles  on  which  vocations  are  carried  on  is 
dismissed  with  contumely.  Dr.  David  Snedden, 
for  example,  cannot  speak  peaceably  about  it,  and 
in   his   important   work   on    Vocational  Education 

1  Cf .  Chap.  VI  in  E.  Davenport's  Education  for  Efficiency. 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  53 

(Macmillan  Co.,  1920)  gives  a  vivid  account  of  what 
he  thinks  real  vocational  education  must  be.  Of 
the  schools  of  compromise  who  content  themselves 
with  principles,  he  says  : 

"  The  crying  evil  of  this  situation  is,  of  course,  to  be 
found  in  the  wholesale  misdirection  of  energy  which  it 
entails.  These  hybrid  schools  do  not  usually  give  a  fair, 
or  in  any  sense  acceptable,  vocational  education  ;  they 
seriously  misguide  the  pupil  as  regards  a  possible  career 
and  his  qualifications  therefor ;  and  often  they  make 
no  really  worthy  contributions  towards  the  true  and  desir- 
able ends  of  liberal  or  general  education."  1 

Vocational  education,  according  to  Dr.  Snedden, 
must  be  carried  on  under  normal  conditions,  such  as 
obtain  in  ordinary  life,  in  real  workshops,  genuine 
factories,  actual  counting-houses.  The  sort  of 
thing  he  has  in  view  may  be  gathered  from  his 
requirements  in  the  training  of  locomotive  drivers. 
Instead  of  having  a  few  yards  of  railway-line 
attached  to  the  technical  school,  there  should  be 
available  a  line  of  rails  extending  for  some  thirty 
miles.  As  he  calculates  that  there  are  no  fewer 
than  two  thousand  separate  occupations  for  which 
preparation  on  this  material  scale  is  required,  it  will 
be  seen  that  the  practical  difficulties  are  enormous, 
and,  in  fact,  can  be  surmounted  only  by  making 
each  occupation  responsible  for  the  training  of  its 
own  recruits — a  reversion,  in  fact,  to  the  old 
apprenticeship  system  under  broader  and  more 
scientific  conditions. 

A  fourth  way  of  treating  the  problem  may  be 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  75. 


54  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

called  tendencial,  since  it  provides  a  training  in 
certain  directions  that  are  in  keeping  with  the 
natural  tendencies  of  the  pupils  towards  particular 
lines  of  work.  By  cultivating  these  tendencies  the 
teacher  prepares  the  pupil  to  take  up  with  advan- 
tage some  line  towards  which  his  inherent  gifts 
supply  a  bias.  Ginn  &  Co.  publish  a  big  book  of 
723  pages,  entitled  Readings  in  Vocational  Guidance, 
where  a  great  mass  of  evidence  on  this  subject  is 
edited  by  Meyer  Bloomfield,  the  director  of  the 
Vocational  Bureau  of  Boston.  It  contains  one 
article  in  particular  that  has  a  special  interest  in 
connection  with  the  point  under  discussion  here. 
It  is  contributed  by  Dr.  Herman  Schneider,  Dean  of 
the  College  of  Engineering  at  the  University  of 
Cincinnati.  In  this  he  has  a  series  of  dichotomies 
of  human  beings  according  to  their  preferences  and 
capacities.  They  are  divided,  for  example,  into 
those  that  prefer  mental  work  and  those  that 
prefer  manual  work :  those  who  love  uniformity 
and  routine  and  those  who  love  continual  variety  : 
indoor  people  and  outdoor  people :  generalising 
people  and  specialising  people  :  people  who  love 
responsibility  and  people  who  loathe  it.  He  has 
many  more  categories,  but  these  will  give  an  indi- 
cation of  the  sort  of  rough  classification  made  by 
this  director  of  studies  for  his  own  use  in  the 
allocating  of  students  to  the  particular  kind  of  work 
that  is  likely  to  lead  to  the  most  satisfactory  results 
in  after  life.  We  are  probably  not  yet  ripe  in 
England  for  the  practical  application  of  such  a 
series  of  categories,  but  we  are  moving  in  that 
direction.     Teachers  are  becoming  increasingly  inter- 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  55 

ested  in  the  future  careers  of  their  pupils,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  parents  are  getting  more  and 
more  accustomed  to  consult  them  on  this  matter. 
No  doubt  many  teachers  object  to  the  assumption 
that  they  are  to  be  held  responsible  for  what 
happens  to  the  pupils  once  the  school  has  been  left 
behind.  If  they  are  fond  of  big  words,  they  say 
that  the  parents  stand  in  an  architectonic  relation 
to  the  teacher,  which,  being  interpreted,  means  that 
the  parents  are  in  the  position  of  using  the  finished 
product  turned  out  by  the  teacher.  A  natural 
consequence  of  this  relation  is  that  the  teacher  must 
take  his  orders  from  the  parents,  which,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  has  to  do,  even  though  the  parental 
authority  is  delegated  to  certain  administrative 
officers. 

With  the  somewhat  more  human  relations  being 
gradually  cultivated  between  parents  and  teachers, 
it  is  only  natural  that  the  parent  should,  wherever 
possible,  consult  the  teacher,  and  ask  him,  as  man 
to  man,  what  he  really  thinks  John  should  do  in  the 
way  of  choosing  a  vocation.  The  increase  of  this 
demand,  whether  from  the  individual  parent  or 
from  the  education  authorities  as  representing  the 
parents  collectively,  will  inevitably  lead  to  a  study 
of  the  special  bents  and  powers  of  the  pupils  not 
merely  with  regard  to  school  activities,  but  with 
regard  to  the  demands  likely  to  be  made  upon  them 
in  their  future  vocations.  It  is  quite  clear  that  if  a 
series  of  suitable  categories  were  set  up  as  the  result 
of  careful  investigation,  the  teachers  would  be  put 
in  a  much  better  position  than  at  present  for  forming 
a  useful  estimate  of  the  natural  bent  and  capacity  of 


56  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

their  pupils.  In  consequence,  it  will  become  in- 
creasingly easy  to  give  just  such  a  bias  to  the 
pupils'  studies  as  shall  make  each  individual  a  little 
better  adapted  to  follow  the  vocation  for  which 
school  standards  indicate  that  he  is  best  fitted. 
This  tendencial  treatment  of  vocational  preparation 
does  not  interfere  with  the  fullest  development  of 
the  cultural  side.  It  merely  suggests  a  definite 
guiding  of  effort  into  certain  lines  of  work  that  while 
cultural  in  themselves  give  a  bias  towards  some 
particular  vocation  in  which  the  pupil  is  likely  to 
do  his  best  and  happiest  work. 

That  final  adjective  introduces  a  consideration 
that  is  too  often  lost  sight  of  in  connection  with 
vocational  preparation.  If  the  pupil  is  turned  into 
an  occupation  that  is  not  suited  to  him,  he  may 
earn  a  living  right  enough,  but  may  never  really 
enjoy  life  in  the  way  he  might  have  done  had  he 
been  better  guided.  Following  the  Schneider 
dichotomies,  we  find  that  human  beings  fall  into  the 
two  classes,  those  whose  attention  works  best  when 
allowed  to  range  over  a  wide  area,  and  those  who 
enjoy  work  that  demands  attention  to  a  very  limited 
area.  In  allocating  these  people  to  their  work  in 
a  great  factory,  if  attention  is  paid  to  their  pecu- 
liarities all  goes  well ;  if  not,  evil  results  follow. 
Here  the  bluff,  hearty,  well-disposed  employer  of 
labour  on  a  large  scale  is  apt  to  become  impatient, 
and  tells  the  experimental  educationist  that  all  this 
refinement  is  sheer  waste  of  time.  "  If  you  were  in 
charge  of  a  great  factory  like  mine,  my  dear  sir, 
you  would  soon  see  how  unnecessary  all  this  fuss  is. 
Put  your  wide-attention  man  to  a  narrow-attention 

I 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  57 

job,  and  your  narrow-attention  man  to  a  wide- 
attention  job,  and  I  admit  there  will  be  a  little 
uneasiness  at  the  beginning,  but  in  a  few  months 
things  settle  down  and  you  never  hear  any  more 
about  it."  Quite  so.  The  manager  hears  no  more 
about  it.  The  misfit  workman  does  not  die.  There- 
fore all  is  well.  No  account  is  taken  of  the  per- 
manently reduced  vitality  of  the  men  put  at  the 
wrong  sort  of  job.  Many  go  through  life  with  an 
almost  permanent  headache,  the  direct  result  of  a 
vocational  misfit.  There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the 
schools  in  the  immediate  future  will  have  to  take  1 
up  their  share  in  setting  right  the  method  of  adapting 
individual  qualities  to  suitable  environments. 

The  danger-signal  is  raised  every  time  that  any 
suggestion  for  improved  school-work  seems  to  have 
an  economic  bearing.  But  this  tendencial  treatment 
of  vocational  preparation  can  have  nothing  but  a 
beneficial  effect  upon  industry,  even  from  the  finan- 
cial standpoint.  It  will  naturally  involve  some 
correlation  between  the  leaders  of  industry  and  the 
teachers,  which  in  itself  will  be  all  to  the  good.  But 
once  the  employers  of  labour  have  found  out  exactly 
the  qualities  they  desire  and  have  passed  on  their 
requirements  to  the  teachers,  the  rest  must  be  left 
to  the  schools.  There  is  no  need  to  interfere  with 
the  teachers'  liberty  of  choice  in  carrying  out  their 
work.  Once  they  know  what  is  expected  of  them, 
it  is  the  teachers'  business  to  find  means  of  attaining 
the  ends  set  before  them.  Nobody  else  can  do  this 
for  them. 

This  tendencial  attitude  towards  vocational  work 
will  probably  make  an  effective  appeal  to  the  English 


58  The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World 

love  of  compromise.  The  notion  of  shaping  ends 
to  meet  future  vocational  needs  will  be  sweetened 
to  the  teachers  by  the  fact  that  it  is  unlikely  that 
there  will  ever  be  vocational  training  at  any  stage 
at  which  attendance  is  compulsory.  Even  in  Amer- 
ica there  has  been  no  suggestion  of  such  training 
at  any  school  where  pupils  must  attend.  The  Labour 
Party  in  England  is  keenly  alive  to  the  dangers  of 
anything  approaching  vocational  training,  perhaps 
excessively  so.  But  even  the  Labour  Party  should 
welcome  the  tendencial  treatment  of  the  matter, 
since  it  involves  a  clear  field  for  the  cultural  elements. 
If  culture  can  be  combined  with  a  bias  towards 
some  line  of  useful  occupation,  we  should  all  welcome 
that  bias.  Training  under  these  conditions  would 
be  equally  applicable  to  all,  and  would  have  no 
tendency  to  turn  pupils  into  convenient  material 
to  supply  more  useful  cogs  in  the  industrial  machine. 
Cogs  are  needed,  no  doubt,  and  always  will  be,  but 
the  turning  into  cogs  must  be  a  matter  for  post- 
school  activities.  Some  of  the  pupils,  no  doubt, 
will  prove  to  be  fit  for  nothing  but  being  turned 
into  cogs,  but  at  least  they  will  have  had  their 
chance  during  the  school  course. 

From  the  practical  teacher's  standpoint,  the 
conclusion  of  this  whole  matter  appears  to  be  that 
at  the  earliest  stages  we  must  do  everything  we  can 
to  make  pupils  feel  at  home  in  this  world,  without 
encouraging  a  marked  distinction  between  the  school- 
world  and  the  out-of-school  world,  and  only  at  the 
advanced  stages  should  we  begin  to  feel  our  way 
towards  discovering  special  capacity  for  particular 
types  of  vocation.     The  fourteen-to- eighteen  period 


The  Child,  the  School,  and  the  World  59 

at  present  devoted  (in  theory,  at  any  rate)  to  con- 
tinuation work  is  a  practical  indication  of  the  lines 
along  which  we  are  likely  to  settle  our  educational 
training  problem,  for  all  pupils  except  those  who 
are  fitted  to  undertake  preparation  for  the  higher 
professions.  In  the  case  of  these  last  a  reconciliation 
between  the  cultural  and  the  vocational  should  be 
easy  to  arrange  without  outraging  the  sensibilities 
of  anyone  who  has  an  acquaintance  with  modern 
educational  tendencies  and  their  literature. 


CHAPTER     III 
STANDARDS  AND  MENTAL   TESTS 

AS  a  practical  person  the  teacher  wants  to  know 
as  much  as  he  can  about  the  nature  of  his 
pupil,  just  as  a  plumber  wants  to  know  the  qualities 
of  the  lead  with  which  he  works.  As  the  plumber 
can  learn  all  that  he  needs  to  know  about  lead  without 
studying  chemistry,  so  many  teachers  believe  that 
they  can  find  all  they  need  to  know  about  the 
pupil  without  falling  back  upon  psychology.  Maybe 
they  are  right,  but  in  any  case  they  admit  that  they 
want  to  know  as  much  as  possible  about  their  pupils, 
and  to  know  as  accurately  as  they  can.  They  feel 
that  it  is  not  an  infringement  on  their  private  judg- 
ment to  compare  notes  with  other  practical  teachers, 
but  this  comparison  does  not  go  very  far  till  they 
find  themselves  faced  by  the  need  for  some  common 
standard.  They  discover  that  each  is  inclined  to 
have  his  own  opinion  and  to  hold  to  it,  since  there 
is  no  outside  standard  with  which  opinions  may  be 
compared.  Up  till  quite  recently  each  teacher  has 
been  his  own  standard,  since  most  educational 
doctrine  was  mainly  a  matter  of  opinion.  In  other 
words,  there  was  nothing  but  a  subjective  standard. 
Decisions  were  made  according  to  the  view  of  the 
person  who  had  the  authority;     He  was  the  final 

60 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        61 

court,  and  from  his  decision  there  was  no  appeal. 
In  education  there  has  always  been  this  tendency 
to  have  everything  determined  by  individual 
opinion.  Certain  educational  processes  are  gone 
through ;  certain  results  follow  in  the  lives  of 
the  educands.  The  causal  relations  involved  are 
arranged  by  the  individual  observer  to  suit  his  own 
views.  According  to  some,  the  Battle  of  Waterloo 
was  won  on  the  playing-fields  of  Eton  ;  according 
to  others,  the  Battle  of  Colenso  was  lost  there.  We 
have  need  of  some  standard  that  is  independent 
of  private  opinion. 

What  is  wanted,  though  the  practical  teacher 
does  not  usually  care  to  put  it  in  these  words,  is  an 
objective  standard.  The  plain  man,  and  even  the 
artist,  can  argue  about  colours  and  maintain  his  own 
view  as  against  all  comers,  but  now  that  science 
has  discovered  wave-lengths,  there  is  a  standard 
by  which  the  colours  of  the  rainbow  can  be  compared, 
and  any  dispute  about  them  settled  definitely  beyond 
all  individual  cavil.  It  cannot  be  maintained  that 
education  has  been  as  fortunate  as  physics.  Up 
till  now  the  objective  standard  has  been  to  seek, 
and  has  not  yet  been  found.  It  appears,  however, 
to  have  cast  before  it  certain  shadows  that  encourage 
seekers  to  persevere.  The  indications  carry  us 
to  mathematics.  Quantitative  methods  have  been  " 
adopted  of  late  in  education,  and  hold  out  fair 
promises  of  leading  us  to  something  of  the  nature 
of  an  objective  standard.  It  is  probable  that  a 
completely  objective  standard  will  never  be  found 
available  in  any  but  the  exact  sciences,  among  which  \ 
education  is  never  likely  to  rank. 


62        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

Still,  there  is  a  great  attraction  in  some  of  the 
mathematical  methods  suggested.  Of  these  the 
most  promising  are  the  correlation  formulae  beginning 
with  Bravais,  but  more  usually  associated  with 
Professor  Karl  Pearson,  who  has  extensively  used 
this  instrument  of  research,  as  has  also  Professor  C.  E. 
Spearman.  The  formulae  are  used  to  determine  how 
far  the  same  forces  are  at  work  in  different  series 
of  phenomena.  If,  for  example,  we  set  out  in  tabular 
form  the  amount  of  alcohol  sold  in  each  of  the  past 
twenty  years,  and  in  another  table  the  number  of 
railway  accidents  that  occurred  during  each  of  these 
years,  and  then  proceed  to  compare  the  tables,  we 
might  possibly  find  that  as  the  amount  of  alcohol 
increases  so  does  the  number  of  accidents,  or  that 
as  the  amount  of  alcohol  increases  the  number  of 
accidents  diminishes,  then  we  would  have  a  corre- 
lation established  between  the  two  factors  alcohol 
and  accidents.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no 
correspondence  at  all  between  the  two  sets  of  figures, 
we  say  that  there  is  no  correlation.  In  the  first 
case,  if  there  is  a  perfect  correlation — that  is,  if  every 
increase  in  the  one  column  is  marked  by  an  exactly 
corresponding  increase  in  the  other — we  have  a 
positive  correlation,  marked  by  the  sign  +  i.  If 
the  correspondence  is  exact  as  before,  but  in  the 
opposite  direction — that  is,  every  rise  in  the  one 
column  being  marked  by  a  corresponding  fall  in 
the  other — we  have  a  negative  correlation,  indicated 
by  the  symbol  —  i.  If  there  is  no  correlation  at 
all,  the  symbol  is  zero. 

The  formula  preferred  by  Professor  Karl  Pearson 
is  the  more  suitable  for   elaborate  investigations 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        63 

and  where  accurate  data  are  available,  but  is, 
for  ordinary  educational  purposes,  a  needlessly 
sensitive  and  complicated  instrument,  so  the  general 
tendency  among  teachers  is  to  accept  the  Spearman 
formula,  which  is  so  simple  that  it  is  sometimes 
spoken  of  as  his  "foot-rule."  It  is  sufficiently  accur- 
ate for  all  practical  purposes,  and  runs  as  follows  : 

M' 

Here  R  stands  for  the  index  of  correlation,  Sg 

for  the  sum  of  gains  in  a  particular  series  of  cases. 

M  stands  for  the  average  number  of  gains  to  be 

expected  in  the  long  run  if  the  ups  and  downs  were 

due  merely  to  chance.     It  is  expressed  numerically 

fat j 

as  — ? —  where  n  stands  for  the  number  of  cases 
o 

considered.  All  this  will  be  found  either  dismally 
familiar  or  desperately  complicated,  according  to 
the  reader's  intimacy  with  mathematics.1     But  the 

1  Sometimes  the  non-mathematical  teacher  falls  into 
despair  when  a  book  of  the  type  of  Brown  and  Thomson's 
Mental  Measurement  comes  his  way.  But  he  must  remem- 
ber that  our  profession  has  now  reached  that  stage  of  ad- 
vancement that  no  one  man  or  woman  can  venture  to  profess 
the  whole  theory  of  it.  We  are  as  much  entitled  to  claim 
the  privileges  of  the  division  of  labour  as  the  chemist,  or, 
for  that  matter,  the  mathematician  himself,  for  even  he 
no  longer  dares  to  claim  the  whole  of  the  field  as  his  own. 
The  teacher  who  "  has  no  head  for  mathematics  "  may, 
with  quite  a  good  conscience,  leave  abstruse  calculations 
to  those  whose  business  it  is  to  attend  to  such  matters. 
Yet  his  head  will  certainly  not  break  under  the  strain  of 
applying  such  a  simple  formula  as  is  illustrated  above. 
For  those  who  have  quite  good  mathematical  inclinations, 
but  have  not  had  their  attention  directed  to  the  newer 


64        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 


application  of  the  formula  need  give  trouble  to  no 
one.  Its  working  is  absolutely  plain,  as  will  be  seen 
from  the  following  example.  The  teacher  wants  to 
know  whether  there  is  a  correlation  between  the 
ability  of  the  same  group  of  boys  in  Latin  and  in 
mathematics.     Accordingly,  he  gets  the  Latin  master 


Boys'  Names. 

Rank  in 
Latin. 

Rank  in 
Maths. 

Gain  in 
Rank. 

Amberside 

5 

5 

— 

Brereton  . 

8 

6 

2 

Cowan 

12 

11 

1 

Denison    . 

2 

3 

— 

Everton   . 

4 

7 

— 

Fernleigh 

11 

4 

7 

Guthrie    . 

6 

8 

— 

Humberly 

7 

12 

— 

Ilford 

9 

10 

— 

Jephson   . 

1 

2 

— 

Kettering 

3 

1 

2 

Latymer  • 

10 

9 

1 

— 

13 

to  give  them  an  examination  and  arrange  them  in 
order  of  merit  according  to  the  results,  and  the 
mathematics  master  to  do  the  same  thing  for  his 
subject.     If  the  two  lists  of  merit  coincide,  there 

quantitative  methods  in  education,  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  mention  that  all  they  want — and  a  good  deal  more 
— will  be  found  in  H.  O.  Rugg's  Statistical  Methods  Applied 
to  Education  (Harrap,  London).  Less  formidable  books 
are  E.  L.  Thorndike's  Mental  and  Social  Measurements 
(Teachers'  College  Bureau  of  Publications,  New  York) 
and  W.  I.  King's  Elements  of  Statistical  Method  (Macmillan 
Co.,  New  York).  Of  more  general  interest  is  W.  A.  McCall's 
How  to  Measure  in  Education  (1922). 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        65 

is  perfect  correlation  :  we  have  +  1  for  R,  and 
there  is  no  more  to  be  said.  But  it  is  all  but  certain 
that  some  who  rank  high  on  the  one  list  will  rank 
low  on  the  other,  and  the  problem  is  to  find  a  quanti- 
tative statement  of  the  amount  of  agreement. 
For  convenience,  we  take  merely  the  first  twelve 
names  on  such  a  list,  as  the  principle  can  be  as  well 
illustrated  by  twelve  as  by  forty. 
Applying  our  formula  we  get : 

r=i — ii_  =  5=  5. 

144  —  1       11        ^ 
~~6 

This  gives  a  positive  correlation  of  -45,  which 
shows  that  there  is  a  reasonable  amount  of  corre- 
spondence between  power  to  learn  Latin  and  power 
to  learn  mathematics.  We  must  not  make  the 
mistake  of  supposing  that  there  have  to  be  very  high 
figures  like  '98  or  '87  before  a  satisfactory  corre- 
lation can  be  inferred.  It  will  be  noted  that  Fern- 
leigh  does  a  good  deal  to  spoil  the  symmetry  of  the 
arrangement,  which  illustrates  the  fact  that  to  get 
the  best  results  of  the  formula  it  is  well  to  have  a 
considerable  number  of  entries.  But  of  this  its 
inventor  is  well  aware,  and  various  mathematical 
checks  are  arranged  for,  in  order  to  minimise  the 
chances  of  serious  error. 

This  formula  has  already  been  used  a  good  deal 
in  connection  with  school- work  generally  and  examin- 
ation results  in  particular,  and  has  given  satisfaction. 
But  in  all  these  newer  mathematical  applications 
there  is  a  serious  source  of  error  against  which 
practical  teachers  must  be  continually  on  their 
5 


66         Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

guard.  This  is  the  misleading  air  of  accuracy 
thrown  over  all  investigations  that  can  be  expressed 
in  mathematical  terms.  No  doubt  the  mathemati- 
cian keeps  his  bargain,  and  conscientiously  and  skil- 
fully grinds  out  accurate  results.  But  it  is  apt  to 
be  forgotten  that  in  the  first  instance  the  grist  that 
is  brought  to  the  mathematician's  mill  has  had  to 
be  prepared  by  plain  human  resources.  The 
arrangement  of  the  boys,  for  example,  in  order  of 
merit  is  not  worked  by  mathematics,  but  by  a 
fallible  human  brain.  Making  all  allowance  for 
human  frailty,  the  results  have  been  sufficiently 
accurate  in  the  past  to  give  practical  guidance  in 
some  important  school  matters,  particularly  in 
connection  with  scholarship  adjudication. 

This  leads  us  directly  to  the  living  child,  who, 
after  all,  is  the  raw  material  on  which  the  teacher 
works.  The  correlation  formulae  aid  in  getting  at  a 
relative  estimate  of  his  capacities  in  certain  direc- 
tions, but  are  helpless  in  getting  at  his  individual 
qualities.  The  thoughtful  teacher  is  not  in  the  least 
likely  to  underestimate  the  complexity  of  the  problem 
presented  by  the  child  here  and  now  present. 
No  doubt  we  have  to  come  to  a  rough-and-ready 
estimate  of  the  nature  of  each  member  of  our  class, 
but  there  remains  the  inevitable  desire  for  a  some- 
what more  accurate  gauge  of  qualities  than  can  be 
obtained  by  mere  inspection.  Here  too  an  attempt 
has  been  made  to  reach  something  like  an  objective 
standard.  Something  must  be  lost  in  the  process 
of  estimating  the  value  of  the  pupil  as  raw  material 
for  the  educator.  We  want  to  know  the  child  as  a 
whole  in  all  his  complexity,  but  as  we  recognise  that 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        67 

this  is  impossible,  we  set  about  looking  for  those 
qualities  or  that  quality  that  have  or  has  a  dominat- 
ing influence  on  the  rest.  It  is  a  difficult  matter 
to  decide  whether  there  is  such  a  general  factor  at 
all,  and  if  so  which  it  is.  Since  rank  in  school 
depends  upon  quickness  of  learning,  and  this  quick- 
ness is  commonly  spoken  of  as  intelligence,  the 
teacher  naturally  recognises  this  as  the  quality  he 
would  have  selected  on  his  own  account  as  the  one 
to  be  tested.  Even  under  the  old  individual  exam- 
ination system  the  pupils  in  the  elementary  schools 
were  subjected  to  intelligence  tests  by  the  govern- 
ment inspectors,  though  these  resolved  themselves 
mainly  into  questions  to  discover  whether  the  pupils 
followed  the  meaning  of  passages  selected  from  their 
reading-books.  We  shall  find  that  historically  this 
quality  of  intelligence  was  the  first  that  the  French 
psychologists  set  about  investigating  from  the 
educational   standpoint. 

Now  the  practical  teacher  of  these  days  is  inclined 
to  be  impatient  of  the  everlasting  investigations 
into  the  meaning  of  words  used  in  connection  with 
his  craft,  but  he  must  learn  to  realise  that  he  cannot 
advance  along  the  path  of  educational  progress  till 
he  has  mastered  his  terms.  He  must,  for  example, 
make  up  his  mind  about  what  this  intelligence  is. 
It  is  not  quite  the  same  thing  as  intellect,  which 
has  a  much  more  abstract  application,  and  is  gener- 
ally regarded  as  dealing  with  what  is  called  pure 
thought.  Intelligence,  on  the  other  hand,  is  usually 
connected  with  the  things  of  ordinary  life,  applied 
thought,  the  fitting  of  means  to  ends  by  the  use  of 
ideas.     It  is  sometimes  described  as  mother  wit, 


68       Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

the  power  of  suiting  our  actions  to  the  needs  of  each 
situation  in  life  as  it  arises.  The  dignified  refer  to 
it  sometimes  as  savoir-faire,  the  not  so  dignified 
content  themselves  with  gumption.  To  it  Bergson 
opposes  instinct,  in  which  there  is  a  more  or  less 
uniform  reaction  to  given  conditions.  We  are 
gradually  learning  that  instincts  are  not  so  rigid, 
and  not  even  quite  so  accurate  in  their  results,  as 
we  had  been  brought  up  to  believe,  but  still  the 
difference  between  intelligence  and  instinct  remains 
practically  that  between  adaptability  and  inflexi- 
bility. 

InteUjgence  is  thus  a  somewhat  elusive  quality, 
a  possibility  rather  than  an  actuality,  a  mere  poten- 
tiality. It  seems  almost  impossible  to  give  such 
an  account  of  it  as  shall  satisfy  all  honest  enquirers. 
In  fact,  some  are  inclined  to  give  up  the  attempt. 
"  I  doubt  if  we  shall  ever  be  able  to  produce  an 
intelligent  definition  of  intelligence."  l  But  we 
can  perhaps  get  at  a  working  knowledge  of  its 
meaning  by  observing  how  it  is  used,  and  by  follow- 
ing recent  psychological  movements.  What  the 
psychologists  call  the  soul  acts  in  a  great  variety 
of  different  ways,  and  the  old-fashioned  custom 
was  to  name  each  of  these  ways  a  faculty.  This  is 
no  longer  done,  for  it  is  recognised  that  the  soul  is 
one  and  indivisible,  and  not  broken  up  into  a  series 
of  separate  entities  with  such  names  as  perception, 
memory,  judgment,  imagination  ;  though,  of  course, 
we  all  do  perceive,  remember,  judge,  and  imagine. 
No  sooner  did  this  faculty  system  get  its  death-blow 
from  certain  psychologists  than  other  psychologists 
1  L.  P.  Jacks,  From  the  Human  End,  p.  55. 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests       69 

set  up  investigations  of  a  different  kind  altogether, 
and  finally  produced  other  results  from  their  analysis. 
In  particular,  it  was  maintained  that  there  is  one 
general  factor  that  may  be  analysed  out  from  the 
special  ways  in  which  the  soul  acts,  though  it  cannot 
be  really  separated  from  them.  Professor  Spearman 
labels  this  general  factor  with  the  letter  g,  and  makes 
it  correspond  very  much  to  what  we  have  described 
as  intelligence.  Dr.  E.  Webb  worked  out  a  theory 
in  favour  of  a  second  general  element  that  he  labelled 
w,  the  business  of  which  was  to  attend  to  tenacity 
of  purpose,  the  exercise  of  effort,  and  matters  of  that 
sort.  Next,  Dr.  Maxwell  Garnett  comes  along  with 
a  third  general  factor,  which  he  labels  c,  standing  for 
what  is  known  as  cleverness.  At  all  this  we  have 
to  shake  our  heads,  and  wonder  whether  we  are  not 
having  the  old  faculties  coming  back  again  in  a  new 
form,  and  under  fresh  names.  It  suits  our  present 
purpose  exceedingly  well  to  have  one  general  factor 
g  (with  which  is  incorporated,  as  "  combined " 
newspapers  say,  the  Webbian  w,  and  the  Garnettian 
c),  which  represents  a  quality  of  the  first  importance 
to  us  as  teachers,  and  popularly  known  as  intelli- 
gence. 

The  teacher  has  no  hesitation  in  recognising  the 
existence  of  this  quality.  He  knows  that  he  himself 
is  intelligent,  and  he  infers  that  his  pupils  are  intelli- 
gent also.  He  is  painfully  aware  that  they  differ 
materially  in  the  amount  or  kind  of  the  intelligence 
they  show,  and  as  this  difference  is  of  vital  importance 
in  his  work,  he  looks  with  a  favourable  eye  on  any 
attempt  to  provide  means  of  measuring  intelligence. 
The    general   assumption   is   that   each  individual 


70       Standards  and  Mental   Tests 

is  born  into  the  world  with  a  certain  provision  of 
intelligence,  a  provision  that  varies  according  to 
conditions  that  are  at  present  little  understood. 
This  original  intelligence  is  not  fully  developed  at 
birth,  but  gradually  moves  upwards  towards  its 
maximum.  It  may  be  retarded  by  adverse  cir- 
cumstances, or  favoured  by  good  conditions  ;  but 
there  appears  to  be  a  maximum  rate  of  progress 
that  cannot  be  exceeded,  even  under  the  best  cir- 
cumstances. In  other  words,  a  certain  minimum 
of  time  must  elapse  before  the  intelligence  of  an 
individual  can  reach  its  maximum.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  intelligence  is  correlated 
to  the  age  of  that  individual,  as  will  be  shown  later. 
In  the  meantime  it  has  to  be  noted  that  a  general 
belief  is  growing  that  there  is  a  fixed  time  in  the 
life  of  the  individual  beyond  which  there  is  no 
further  development  of  the  intelligence.  When 
this  age  has  been  reached,  there  can  be  no  further 
increase  in  intelligence. 

Common  sense  and  common  experience  at  once 
rebel  against  this  view,  for  it  is  quite  obvious  that 
at  least  some  people  act  more  reasonably  when  they 
reach  middle  age  than  when  they  were  children  or 
adolescents.  Of  course,  it  may  be  that  a  man  has 
the  same  intelligence  at  forty  as  at  fourteen,  the 
difference  being  merely  that  at  the  later  age  he  is 
infinitely  more  at  home  in  his  surroundings,  knows 
a  great  deal  more,  and  therefore  can  use  his  intelli- 
gence to  better  purpose.  The  startling  view  is 
gaining  ground  that  the  period  at  which  intelligence 
ceases  to  develop  is  somewhere  round  about  sixteen, 
so  that  after  a  pupil  has  attained  that  age,  we  may 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests         71 

leave  age  out  of  account  altogether  in  estimating 
his  natural  intelligence.  A  practical  result  of  the 
application  of  this  principle  to  the  data  supplied 
by  the  American  Army  tests  is  that  the  work  of  the 
whole  of  the  United  States  is  being  carried  on  with 
an  intelligence  no  higher  than  that  of  a  boy  of  four- 
teen. Naturally,  we  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
would  never  have  dared  to  make  such  a  statement. 
But  it  is  not  so  devastating  as  at  first  sight  appears, 
for  a  little  reflection  will  show  that  so  far  as  raw 
intelligence  is  concerned,  most  of  our  daily  occupa- 
tions are  well  within  the  reach  of  the  intelligence 
of  a  boy  of  ten. 

We  may  well  leave  the  psychologists  to  fight  out 
their  own  battle  about  the  age  at  which  intelligence 
reaches  its  maximum.  What  chiefly  concerns  us  is 
the  inherent  differences  in  the  intelligences  that 
our  pupils  bring  with  them  to  school.  Of  this 
difference  teachers  need  no  demonstration  at  the 
hands  of  the  professional  psychologist.  Most  of 
them  realise  the  existence  of  the  various  grades, 
and  have  acquired  some  skill  in  allocating  pupils  to 
their  proper  place  in  school.  Few  teachers  would 
make  any  difficulty  about  arranging  in  order  of 
intelligence  the  members  of  any  class  that  they 
know  well.  Certainly  a  fair  number  of  doubtful 
cases  would  occur  between  pairs  of  individuals  of 
about  equal  intelligence.  But  if  the  problem  is  to 
divide  a  class  of  thirty-five  pupils  into  seven  groups 
of  five,  each  group  to  be  a  shade  lower  in  intelligence 
than  the  one  above  it,  there  are  few  teachers  who 
would  go  seriously  wrong.  When  the  psychologist 
comes  along  and  offers  to  supply  a  more  accurate 


72        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

means  of  testing  intelligence,  teachers  differ  in  the 
reception  they  give  him. 

A  small  minority  adopt  a  very  suspicious  attitude. 
They  look  upon  the  proposed  technical  tests  with 
profound  distrust.  They  regard  them  as  the 
invention  of  more  or  less  learned  psychologists  who 
may  know  psychology,  but  certainly  know  nothing 
about  schools  ;  who  may  know  children  in  general, 
but  emphatically  know  nothing  about  the  actual 
children  for  whom  professional  teachers  are  made 
responsible.  They  feel  that  the  theoretical  testers 
hold  themselves  entirely  aloof  from  the  affairs  of 
real  life,  and  live  and  move  and  have  their  being 
in  a  dim  realm  of  shadows,  relieved  only  by  the 
occasional  gleam  of  brass  instruments. 

A  second  group,  also  a  small  one,  is  made  up  of 
credulous  teachers  who  gladly  accept  with  hardly 
any  investigation  the  suggestion  of  an  outside  test 
by  people  who  have  no  personal  responsibility  for 
the  children  tested.  There  is,  in  the  eyes  of  such 
teachers,  something  almost  magical  in  the  new 
tests ;  they  regard  them  with  a  certain  awe  as 
involving  mysterious  and  unchallengeable  processes 
that  give  results  that  cannot  be  gainsaid.  It  is 
easy  to  understand  the  comfort  it  would  bring  to 
an  honest  and  painstaking,  but  not  very  clever, 
teacher  to  be  presented  with  an  authorised  state- 
ment of  the  innate  powers  of  each  of  his  pupils. 
For  such  a  statement  would  prove  a  shield  and  very 
present  help  in  the  time  of  trouble  round  about 
examination  periods.  To  be  sure,  these  credulous 
teachers  will  not  find,  and  to  do  them  justice  they 
do  not  expect  to  find,  that  the  result  of  such  pre- 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        73 

liminary  testing  will  always  be  in  their  favour.  A 
pupil  may  come  to  them  with  a  very  high  intelligence 
mark,  and  may  yet  make  a  very  bad  appearance 
at  examination  time.  Honest  teachers  do  not 
resent  being  held  responsible  in  such  cases,  so  long 
as  they  are  allowed  to  exercise  the  requisite  amount 
of  authority  during  the  school  year.  Given  a 
guarantee  that  the  pupil  has  the  necessary  intelli- 
gence, many  teachers  are  confident  that  they  can 
produce  good  results. 

Even  the  braggart  schoolmaster  Holofernes,  in 
Loves  Labours  Lost,  feels  it  necessary  to  demand 
good  stuff  to  work  upon  :  "  Mehercle,  if  their  sons 
be  ingenious,  they  shall  want  no  instruction  ;  if 
their  daughters  be  capable,  I  will  put  it  to  them/' 
Comenius  overstates  his  case  on  the  magniloquent 
title-page  of  his  Great  Didactic  when  he  says  that  it 
sets  forth  "  The  whole  Art  of  Teaching  all  Things 
to  all  Men,"  so  that  "  the  entire  Youth'  of  both 
Sexes,  none  being  excepted,  shall  Quickly,  Pleasantly 
and  Thoroughly  Become  learned  in  the  Sciences, 
pure  in  Morals,"  and  so  forth.  In  the  text,  how- 
ever, he  reconsiders  matters,  and  does  make  an 
exception,  as  thus :  "  We  promise  then  such  a 
system  of  education  that  all  the  young  shall  be 
educated  (except  those  to  whom  God  has  denied 
understanding)."  l  The  word  here  rendered  under- 
standing comes  near  enough  to  what  we  have  been 
calling  intelligence  to  represent  that  quality  without 
which  the  teacher,  like  Comenius,  cannot  profess  to 
do  satisfactory  work.     What  depresses  teachers  is 

1  Keatinge's  translation,  p.  233  (original :  nisi  Qui  deus 
we ntem  negavit). 


74         Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

the  presence  of  admittedly  dull  boys.  Most  teachers 
dislike  dull  pupils  professionally,  much  as  a  shoe- 
maker hates  bad  leather,  since  he  has  to  stand  or 
fall  by  what  he  can  make  out  of  this  inferior  material. 
It  is  fair  that  a  teacher  should  be  blamed  for  not 
producing  good  results  in  the  case  of  intelligent 
pupils ;  but  in  the  case  of  those  others  he  may 
plead  in  the  words  of  Schiller  that — 

"  Against  stupidity  the  very  gods  are  powerless." 

It  is  true  that  discriminating  inspectors  may  be 
able  to  disentangle  the  absolute  from  the  relative 
in  such  a  case,  and  realise  that  a  boy  has  made 
creditable  progress  in  view  of  his  innate  dullness. 
But  inspectors  of  this  type  are  not  too  common, 
and  the  teacher  may  very  gladly  welcome  such  a 
recognised  coefficient  of  intelligence  as  will  prove 
to  parents  and  others  interested  that  certain  pupils 
have  to  be  judged  by  a  low  standard. 

The  majority  of  teachers  belong  neither  to  the 
credulous  nor  the  unbelieving  group.  They  are 
willing  to  take  whatever  help  the  psychologist  can 
give,  but  claim  the  right  to  test  his.  testing  by 
applying  their  own  criteria.  They  want  to  know 
how  far  his  results  fit  in  with  their  experience. 
They  want  to  know  in  particular  how  the  new  tests 
differ  from  the  old  examinations. 

Many  teachers  speak  of  the  tests  as  if  they  were 
merely  an  abbreviated  and  somewhat  more  reliable 
form  of  examination.  When  they  are  on  their 
guard,  experienced  teachers  are  quite  willing  to 
admit  that  ordinary  examinations,  whether  internal 
or  external,  are  far  from  reliable  means  of  measuring 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        75 

intelligence.  Actual  experience  shows  them — apart 
altogether  from  the  endless  arguments  about 
"formal  training" — that,  generally  speaking,  their 
most  intelligent  boys  do  best  at  examinations. 
But  they  know  that  there  are  many  and  irritating 
exceptions.  There  are  very  able  pupils  who  by 
their  temperament  are  "  bad  examinees,"  and  there 
are  dull  plodders  who  always  at  examinations  get 
results  above  what  their  intelligence  would  seem  to 
warrant.  Further,  there  are  the  accidents  that  go 
so  far  to  discredit  the  capacity-catching  function  of 
examinations.  When  investigated,  these  accidents 
are  nearly  always  found  to  be  connected  with  the 
subject-matter.  The  candidate  has  or  has  not,  as 
the  case  may  be,  happened  to  have  done  recently 
some  particular  bit  of  work  that  chances  to  be  set 
in  the  paper. 

An  experienced  teacher  is  generally  willing  to 
agree  that  the  practical  difference  between  an 
examination  and  an  intelligence  test  is  that  the 
first  is  a  means  of  estimating  attainment,  while  the 
second  attempts  to  measure  capacity.  The  subject- 
matter  of  instruction  is  assumed  not  to  enter  at  all 
into  an  intelligence  test.  In  point  of  fact,  we  know 
that  in  preparing  tests  every  effort  is  made  to 
eliminate  whatever  depends  upon  school  attain- 
ments. 

The  question  inevitably  arises  :  Can  we  separate 
entirely  capacity  from  attainment.  It  has  to  be 
admitted,  to  begin  with,  that  we  cannot  test  quite 
in  vacuo  ;  some  subject-matter  or  other  must  be 
used  in  any  test  that  we  can  apply.  In  practice, 
the  difficulty  is  met  by  selecting  what  is  common  to 


76        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

the  mental  content  of  all  the  persons  under  examina- 
tion. If  the  tester  can  satisfy  himself  that  all 
those  to  be  tested  possess  the  same  knowledge  of 
the  matters  submitted  to  them,  he  may  fairly 
assume  a  general  uniformity  of  standard  in  the 
results  for  all  practical  purposes.  Yet  it  is  found 
in  actual  application  that  because  of  certain  previous 
experience  and  certain  peculiarities  of  disposition 
and  temperament,  the  same  piece  of  knowledge  has 
different  effects  on  different  minds.  It  has  been 
pointed  out,  for  example,  that  in  the  Alpha  series  of 
tests  for  the  American  Army  the  fact  that  two  out 
of  eight  problems  make  a  demand  for  arithmetical 
ability,  places  women  at  a  disadvantage,  as  compared 
with  men.  Naturally,  this  does  not  imply  any  sort 
of  evaluation  of  the  relative  powers  of  men  and 
women,  but  merely  that  in  the  matter  of  numerical 
calculation,  for  some  reason  or  other,  women  test 
lower  than  men.  It  is  not  our  present  business  to 
determine  the  precise  degree  of  accuracy  obtainable 
in  testing  capacity,  but  rather  to  find  out  whether 
we  can  attain  such  a  degree  of  accuracy  as  shall 
enable  the  teacher  to  make  practical  applications 
of  the  testers'  results.  So  far  as  our  present  know- 
ledge goes,  the  actual  position  appears  to  be  that 
we  are  justified  in  using  these  results  for  our 
practical  guidance.  But  we  must  not  expect  so 
much  help  as  teachers  formerly  hoped  for.  A 
writer  l  in  The  Child  who  was  a  trained  teacher, 
then  a  lecturer  on  psychology  at  a  university,  and 
now  is  an  inspector  of  schools  under  the  Board  of 
Education,  and  is  therefore  entitled  to  speak  from 
1  Frank  Watts,  author  of  Abnormal  Psychology. 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        77 

wide  and  varied  experience,  gives  us  the  following 
significant  statements  regarding  the  present  status 
of  these  tests  : 

(i)  The  idea  that  innate  capacity  could  be  mea- 
sured apart  from  the  influences  of  education  and 
training  has  proved  barren . 

(ii)  The  attempt  to  construct  a  single  reliable  test 
capable  of  measuring  general  intelligence  has  been 
given  up  as  impossible. 

(iii)  A  series  of  tests  will  give  us  a  rough  idea  of 
the  general  average  level  of  intellectual  ability  in  a 
subject,  if  such  tests  cover  a  wide  enough  range  of 
its  most  representative  forms.  But  all  average 
measures  should  be  distrusted  in  so  far  as  they 
obscure  significant  individual  variation. 

Perhaps  the  results  of  the  rough-and-ready 
methods  of  testing  for  ability  in  the  American  Army 
have  produced  a  too  favourable  impression  on  prac- 
tical people.  They  served  their  purpose  exceedingly 
well,  and  as  they  were  applied  on  a  gigantic  scale 
— no  fewer  than  1,750,000  men  being  tested — the 
imagination  is  impressed,  and  the  conviction  arises 
that  here,  at  least,  we  have  conditions  warranting 
the  confidence  even  of  the  suspicious.  The  very 
fact  that  the  testers  confined  themselves  to  general 
descriptions  of  classes  instead  of  expressing  their 
results  in  figures,  gave  an  added  sense  of  security. 
Only  seven  classes  were  adopted,  as  follows  : 


A. 

Very  Superior. 

C-. 

Low  Average. 

B. 

Superior. 

D. 

Inferior. 

c+. 

High  Average. 

D-. 

Very  Inferior, 

c. 

Average. 

78        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

This  is  just  the  sort  of  thing  we  need  in  school,  and, 
in  fact,  many  teachers  use  a  scheme  of  classification 
that  is  practically  identical  with  it,  though  the 
basis  of  the  classification  is  more  general  impression 
than  specific  testing.  Other  teachers  take  the  view 
that  though  this  sevenfold  classification  may  be 
good  enough  for  the  practical  needs  of  an  army  in 
a  hurry,  it  is  not  accurate  enough  for  the  purposes 
of  the  professional  educator.  The  lure  of  percent- 
ages and  of  the  decimal-point  is  very  powerful,  and 
few  there  be  who  can  completely  resist  it.  The 
American  Army  classification  resulted  in  three 
rather  overcrowded  groups  in  the  middle,  and  a 
fringe  of  small  groups  at  the  extremities.  The 
teacher  wants  a  finer  discrimination  within  the  middle 
groups,  and  hungers  for  a  numerical  coefficient. 
Accordingly,  a  welcome  was  waiting  for  the  formula 
that  gradually  evolved  in  the  form  of  the  Intelligence 
Quotient,  familiarly  known  as  IQ. 

The  Binet  tests  began  with  no  numerical  basis. 
Their  original  purpose  was  to  discover  which  children 
were  "  defective  "  in  the  sense  of  needing  a  special 
kind  of  training.  The  Paris  authorities  recognised 
the  need  for  separate  treatment  for  defective  children, 
but  were  brought  up  by  the  practical  difficulty 
of  determining  which  children  were  really  defective. 
In  their  need  they  turned  to  their  psychologists, 
but  these  had  given  this  matter  no  particular  atten- 
tion. Professor  Alfred  Binet,  however,  at  once 
took  the  matter  up,  and  with  the  aid  of  certain 
teachers  and  others  who  knew  school  conditions 
he  gradually  evolved  a  set  of  tests  that  he  believed 
were  sufficient  to  determine  the  normal  intelligence 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        79 

of  children  at  various  ages,  a  departure  of  more 
than  two  years  from  which  gave  indication  of  prob- 
able defective  status.  Professor  Binet's  investiga- 
tions resulted  in  two  tables.  One  was  called  the 
Barime  d' Instruction,  a  sort  of  ready-reckoner  of  the 
results  of  instruction  which,  when  examined,  is 
found  to  be  a  crude  approach  to  the  sort  of  thing 
that  used  to  appear  in  the  requirements  of  the 
different  standards  under  the  Education  Codes.  Ex- 
perienced teachers  of  mature  years  smile  as  they 
glance  at  this  apprentice-work  of  the  distinguished 
psychologist.  But  the  second  table  they  treat 
with  more  respect,  though  with  a  certain  amount 
of  distrust.  It  is  called  L'Echelle  Metrique  de 
I' Intelligence.  Here,  again,  the  veteran  of  the  ol37 
standard  system  in  British  schools  smiles  when  he 
hears  it  claimed  that  "  Binet  was  the  first  to  utilise 
the  idea  of  age  standards  or  norms  in  the  measure^ 
ment  of  intelligence."  '  They  know  that  an  age 
standard  of  intelligence  almost  forced  itself  upon 
them  and  the  parents  of  their  children.  All  the 
same,  Binet  systematised  the  application  of  this 
age  standard  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  possible 
for  his  successors  to  give  a  scientific  turn  to  its 
development,  and  provide  a  numerical  basis  of 
calculation.  Lewis  M.  Terman  and  his  helpers  at 
Leland  Stanford  University,  California,  have  taken 
up  the  work  that  Binet  left  unfinished  at  his  death, 
and  have  so  systematised  the  tests  and  correlated 
them  to  the  various  ages  that  they  have  evolved 
a  scheme  by  which  the  much-desired  quantitative 
coefficient  may  be  legitimately  reached. 

1  L.  M.  Terman,  The  Measurement  of  Intelligence,  p.  40. 


80        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

Professor  Terman  has  invented  a  symmetrical 
scheme  of  tests,  each  test  having  a  time  value.  It 
is  found  that  the  eleventh  and  the  thirteenth  years 
are  a  little  anomalous  :  accordingly,  no  tests  are 
prescribed  for  them.  All  the  rest  are  arranged  as 
follows  : 

Six  tests  for  each  year  from  3  to  10,  each  test 
counting  for  two  months. 

Eight  tests  for  twelfth  year,  each  test  counting  for 
three  months. 

Six  tests  for  fourteenth  year,  each  test  counting 
for  four  months. 

Six  tests  for  average  adult,  each  test  counting 
for  five  months. 

Six  tests  for  superior  adult,  each  test  counting 
for  six  months. 

On  the  Binet  scheme  it  was  enough  to  find  out 
whether  a  particular  pupil  did  or  did  not  come  up  to 
the  standard  for  his  years.  But  the  above  table 
supplies  a  means  of  estimating  how  far  short  or 
how  far  in  advance  a  pupil  is  for  his  age.  In  other 
words,  it  is  possible  to  determine  what  is  called 
the  mental  age  of  a  pupil.  If  a  boy  can  do  just  the 
tests  set  down  for  his  age,  then  his  chronological 
age  and  his  mental  age  coincide.  But  the  tests 
are  not  limited  to  the  chronological  age  of  the  pupil. 
He  may  not  be  able  to  do  all  the  tests  set  against 
his  ordinary  age,  and  yet  he  may  be  able  to  do  one 
or  two  of  the  tests  for  higher  ages,  and  a  calculation 
is  necessary  to  determine  his  mental  age.  The 
starting-point   is   the   year  for    which    the    pupil 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        81 

can  do  all  the  tests.  Then  he  gets  credit  for  that 
age.  Next  he  is  tested  in  all  the  ages  above  that, 
getting  so  many  months  added  on  for  each  successful 
test  according  to  the  scale.  Thus  a  boy  of  twelve 
may  be  found  to  be  able  to  do  only  two  of  the  tests 
set  for  the  twelfth  year.  But  he  can  do  all  the 
tests  for  the  tenth  year.  Accordingly,  he  begins 
with  ten  years  to  his  credit.  For  the  two  that  he 
can  do  in  the  twelfth  year  he  gets  credit  for  three 
months  each,  making  six  months  for  that  year.  He 
can  do  also  one  of  the  tests  for  the  fourteenth  year, 
and  for  this  he  is  credited  with  four  months,  and 
for  doing  one  of  the  average  adult  tests  he  secures 
an  additional  5  months,  making  a  total  of  11  years, 
3  months  as  his  mental  age.  With  these  data  his 
IQ  is  easily  determined,  since  it  is  the  ratio  between 
the  mental  age  and  the  chronological. 

Mental  age  rrs      T    ...  11*25     ■ 

-  IQ.     In  this  case gives 


Chronological  age        **'  12 

the  IQ  of  -94.  To  avoid  the  decimal-point  it  is 
getting  customary  to  make  the  standard  100  instead 
of  bare  unity,  so  that  this  boy's  IQ  would  be  94. 
Anything  between  90  and  no  is  regarded  as 
normal  or  average,  between  80  and  90  as  dull, 
between  70  and  80  as  dull  bordering  on  feeble- 
mindedness, while  anything  below  70  is  definitely 
feeble-minded.  In  the  upper  grades,  between  no 
and  120  we  have  superior  intelligence :  120  to 
140  brings  us  to  that  irritating  "  very  superior 
intelligence/'  while  anything  above  140  borders  on, 
and  may  reach  to,  genius.  Professor  Terman,  by 
a  post-mortem  set  of  tests,  comes  to  the  conclusion 
6 


82        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

that  Sir  Francis  Galton  would  certainly  have  tested 
at  something  like  200,  a  figure  that  is  matched  by  a 
Dundee  boy  who  has  been  tested  by  Dr.  R.  R. 
Rusk.  A  New  York  prodigy  of  a  boy  has  had  a 
pamphlet  written  about  him  because  of  his  IQ  of 
185.  At  Twickenham  a  milder  prodigy  came  under 
my  own  observation  in  the  person  of  a  boy  who  at 
the  age  of  6  years  and  5  months  had  a  mental 
age  of  11  years  and  7  months,  which  gives  an  IQ 
of  180-5.  An  interesting  feature  of  this  case  is  that 
the  boy  was  tested  again  almost  exactly  a  year 
later.  With  all  the  necessary  precautions  to  avoid 
repetitions,  the  result  was*  almost  exactly  the  same, 
his  mental  age  being  13  years  and  8  months  and  his 
chronological  age  7  years  and  6  months,  giving  an 
IQ  of  182.  This  steadiness  of  result  is  the  more 
remarkable  that  the  boy  had  grown  enormously 
during  the  intervening  year,  at  the  end  of  which  he 
was  4  ft.  4J  in.  without  boots. 

The  Terman  tests  have  not  been  long  enough  in 
existence  yet  to  have  established  records  of  well- 
conducted  tests  verified  by  repetition  under  suitable 
controls,  and  by  comparison  with  other  means  of 
estimating  the  intelligence  of  the  subjects.  But 
where  verification  has  been  possible  the  results 
have  been  satisfactory.  Professional  teachers  have 
no  lack  of  objections  to  the  practicability  of  any 
such  scheme  of  testing,  perhaps  the  most  prominent 
of  which  is  the  impossibility  of  getting  a  sufficient 
number  of  parallel  tests  to  prevent  the  subjects 
from  knowing  beforehand  the  nature  of  the  test, 
which  would,  of  course,  materially  diminish  its 
usefulness.     Hundreds    of    investigators    are    busy 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        83 

at  work  inventing  series  of  parallel  tests,  but  they 
are  finding  unexpected  difficulties  in  getting  uni- 
formity. Testing  the  same  set  of  subjects  within 
a  few  days  of  each  other  produces  different  results. 
In  applying  the  same  test  where  the  slightest  part 
is  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  tester,  there  is  the 
possibility  of  material  differences  in  result.  Let 
it  be  admitted  that  we  are  only  making  a  beginning 
of  what  may  develop  into  the  science  of  mental 
testing,  but  the  fact  remains  that  we  have  already 
rough-and-ready  means  of  getting  rapidly  at  the 
grade  of  intelligence  of  our  pupils. 

But  even  admitting  that  on  the  whole  the  tests 
work  smoothly,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  results 
can  be  applied  directly  to  the  classification  of  our 
pupils  in  school.  Attainment,  actual  knowledge,  is  \ 
of  the  essence  of  the  matter  of  placing  a  boy  in  his 
proper  class.  Two  boys  with  the  same  IQ  are  not ~* 
of  necessity  fitted  to  enter  the  same  class  in  a  given 
subject.  Obviously,  a  great  deal  depends  on  what 
they  have  already  done  in  that  subject.  There 
remains,  accordingly,  a  place  for  the  ordinary 
examination  which,  while  not  perhaps  so  accurate 
in  determining  capacity,  certainly  settles  the 
question  whether  the  pupil  has  the  knowledge  or 
skill  to  enter  a  given  class  with  advantage. 

Then,  apart  altogether  from  either  intelligence  or 
attainment,  there  is  the  further  element  of  character. 
All  the  moral  side  remains  yet  to  be  worked  up  in 
relation  to  the  tests,  and  there  are  many  who 
bitterly  resent  the  very  idea  of  a  scheme  of  moral 
tests.  The  teacher  is  certainly  entitled  to  make 
moral  estimates  of  his  pupils,   and  to   act  upon 


84        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

these  estimates  in  his  dealing  with  them,  but  few 
parents  would  be  willing  that  moral  tests  should  be 
devised  and  applied  after  the  pattern  of  the  present 
intelligence  tests,  and  few  teachers  would  care 
to  undertake  such  work.  Here  we  must  carry  on 
by  observation  rather  than  by  experiment.  It  has 
to  be  noted  that  it  is  because  of  the  general  neglect 
of  this  aspect  of  the  subject  that,  according  to 
popular  belief,  there  is  such  a  discrepancy  between 
school  record  and  after-school  record.  Without 
doubt  there  is  a  far  closer  correspondence  between 
the  two  records  than  is  generally  supposed.  The 
attraction  of  striking  exceptions  and  the  neglect  of 
negative  instances  have  here  their  usual  blighting 
influence  on  popular  opinion,  but  the  experienced 
teacher,  in  watching  the  career  of  his  former 
pupils,  finds  that  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  they 
turn  out  pretty  much  as  their  school  record  would 
have  led  him  to  expect.  Where,  however,  the  purely 
intellectual  record  of  a  boy  is  low,  and  his  after 
success  in  life  is  great,  the  disturbing  element  is  a 
moral  one.  The  term  must  not  be  construed  as 
necessarily  implying  something  intrinsically  meri- 
torious. The  moral  qualities  involved  may  be  either 
good  or  bad.  It  may  be  that  when  the  pupil  goes 
out  into  the  world  he  is  stirred  by  fine  motives  to 
make  a  better  use  of  his  native  intelligence  than  he 
did  at  school.  But,  again,  it  may  happen  that  in 
the  outside  world  he  finds  a  scope  for  acquisitive 
and  non-social  qualities  that  were  rigorously 
repressed  at  school,  but  are  found  to  "  pay  "  outside. 
The  important  point  is  for  us  to  realise  that  this 
disturbing  moral  element  has  always  to  be  taken 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        85 

into  account.  When  teachers  are  asked  their 
opinion  of  the  qualities  of  a  pupil,  they  seldom  even 
try  to  give  their  answer  in  terms  of  pure  intelligence. 
They  are  not  at  all  liable  to  the  sneer  directed  at 
Descartes  by  his  critic  Gassendi,  who  addressed 
him  in  the  words  0  mens  !  Even  when  the  teacher 
does  his  best  to  confine  himself  to  the  purely  mental 
aspect,  he  cannot  get  rid  of  the  moral  "  psychic 
fringe  "  that  Stout  would  say  necessarily  accom- 
panies the  teacher's  concept  of  the  pupil. 

Not  much  has  yet  been  done  in  the  way  of  whole- 
sale application  of  the  intelligence  tests  to  school- 
work.  Experiments  are  being  made  by  progressive 
teachers  all  over  England  and  America,  but  they 
are  largely  in  the  laboratory  stage.1  Tentative 
efforts  have  been  made  to  apply  at  least  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  scheme  in  the  means  taken  to  select 
the  most  suitable  candidates  for  state  and  municipal 
scholarships.  In  this  last  use  the  danger  of  possible 
cramming  for  specific  tests  is  very  great,  and  the 
experimenters  have  had  to  expend  an  enormous 
amount  of  ingenuity  and  labour  in  inventing  fresh 
tests  for  each  occasion. 

An  interesting  and  instructive  account  of  the 
direct  application  of  the.  intelligence  tests  in  a 
county  secondary  school  is  contributed  to  the 
Journal  of  Education  for  January  1922  by  the 
headmistress,  Miss  E.  M.  Hughes.  The  material 
used  was  Terman's  Group  Test  of  Mental  Ability. 
Among  the  interesting  results  obtained  was  a  high 
correlation   with   the   examination   results    of   the 

1  For  further  information  on  this  point  see  P.  B.  Ballard's 
Group  Tests  of  Intelligence  (1922). 


86        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

same  pupils  at  the  Senior  Cambridge  grade.  This 
correlation,  -58,  is  countered  by  the  low  correlation, 
•21,  between  the  test  results  and  the  teacher's 
marks  for  the  term.  The  obvious  explanation  of 
the  difference  is  to  be  found  in  what  has  already 
been  said  about  the  moral  element,  but  Miss  Hughes 
goes  out  of  her  way  to  explain  the  cause  of  fifty 
special  cases  of  extreme  divergence  between  test 
results  and  teachers'  estimates.  The  causes  she 
assigns  are  : 

(i)  The  children  in  question  being  younger  than  the 
average  of  the  form,  which  tends  to  the  underestimation 
of  ability. 

(ii)  The  children  being  older,  leading  to  overestimating 
of  ability. 

(iii)  Indifferent  health  and  consequent  remitting  of 
homework. 

(iv)  Difficult  home  circumstances — i.e.  want  of  time  in 
poor  homes,  and  in  very  gay  and  pleasure-loving  homes. 

(v)  Absorbing  interest  in  boys. 

(vi)  "  Swotting,"  together  with  the  possession  of  a  good 
memory. 

(vii)  Newness  of  the  child  to  the  school  and  want  of 
sufficient  time  in  which  to  judge  her  work. 

All  this  throws  into  relief  the  simplicity  of  the 
intelligence  tests,  as  compared  with  the  necessarily 
complex  process  of  getting  at  an  estimate  by  general 
impression.  The  spirit  of  Miss  Hughes'  testing  is 
exactly  what  it  should  be.  The  grim,  shadowy, 
cold-blooded,  disembodied  intelligence — the  ghostly 
g  of  the  psychologists — is  kept  in  its  proper  place, 
and  the  girls  are  treated  as  human  beings. 

But  all  this  takes  it  for  granted  that  teachers  / 
should  do  their  own  testing.     Are  ordinary  teachers 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        87 

qualified  to  conduct  intelligence  tests  on  their  own 
account  ?  The  psychologists  are  doubtful,  and  talk 
sombrely  of  at  least  a  year's  preliminary  training, 
though  the  more  optimistic  are  willing  to  let  us  off 
with  six  months.  Miss  Hughes  does  not  appear 
to  have  heard  of  these  forebodings,  or  if  she  has 
she  brushes  them  aside  with  the  handsome  explana- 
tion that  the  testing  is  a  simple  matter  that  can 
be  easily  carried  out  by  anyone  accustomed  to 
manage  children.  The  two  standpoints  could  be 
easily  reconciled  if  we  were  sure  that  both  parties 
had  the  same  kind  of  testing  in  view.  But  the  two 
are  not  the  same.  Miss  Hughes  has  evidently  in 
mind  something  much  more  of  a  slap-dash  kind 
than  the  psychologists  contemplate.  Her  methods 
belong  rather  to  the  American  Army  type  than 
to  that  of  the  elaborate  individual  tests  that 
the  laboratory-trained  psychologist  has  in  view. 
Teachers  are  almost  morbidly  afraid  of  falling  from 
grace  in  the  matter  of  thoroughness,  and  are  dis- 
inclined to  take  up  any  method  that  even  seems  to 
neglect  this  fundamental  pedagogic  virtue.  But 
collective  tests  are  quite  accurate  enough  if  only 
general  conclusions  are  to  be  drawn.  The  Army 
tests  and  their  derivatives  are  not  very  far  removed 
from  a  satisfactory  mean  between  pedantic  refine- 
ment and  sloppy  amateurishness. 

Many  teachers  bluntly  say  that  they  cannot 
afford  the  time  for  this  technical  testing.  But  Miss 
Hughes  explains  that  she  and  her  staff  did  the 
work  of  testing  300  pupils  in  the  course  of  two  days 
set  apart — of  course,  with  official  sanction — for  this 
purpose.     She  makes  light  of  the  labour  involved, 


88        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

and  we  gather  that  the  effect  upon  her  staff  has  not 
been  prohibitive,  for  we  are  told  that  the  school 
has  resolved  to  test  annually. 

A  less  hopeful  view  of  the  value  of  the  group 
method  of  mental  testing  is  supplied  in  an  account 
of  an  experiment  by  Mr.  Andrew  Bell,  headmaster 
of  the  County  School,  Erith,  published  in  the  Kent 
Education  Gazette  for  January  1922.  Mr.  Bell  asks 
three  questions,  and  after  giving  a  full  account  of 
his  methods,  supplies  answers  to  each. 

(i)  Does  the  Group  Test  offer  a  ready  means  of  classifying 
the  children  in  the  upper  standards  of  elementary  schools  ? 

Answer  :  It  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  experiment 
seems  to  bear  out  the  contention  that  the  Group  Test  affords 
a  means  of  roughly  grouping  the  children  according  to 
intelligence. 

(ii)  Is  the  Group  Test  suitable  for  Scholarship  children  ? 

Answer  :  In  its  present  form  the  Group  Test  is  not  of 
very  great  service.  The  candidates  are  not  in  the  highest 
standards,  and  the  tests  seem  to  need  some  modification 
to  bring  them  to  the  level  required  for  children  of  the  age 
of  eleven  years.  .  .  .  Certainly  there  is  no  saving  of  time 
in  the  Group  Test  so  far  as  correction  is  concerned,  although, 
of  course,  the  test  itself  can  be  given  in  little  over  half  an 
hour. 

(iii)  Could  it  be  used  as  a  substitute  for  the  present 
method  of  examination  ?  This  means  an  oral  test  for  all 
candidates  who  gain  more  than  50  per  cent,  of  the  marks 
for  the  written  paper. 

Answer  :  Let  it  be  said  at  once  that  the  personal  contact 
with  the  candidate  is  most  desirable,  and  this  is  emphasised 
by  the  experience  this  year  with  both  the  Oral  and  the  Group 
Tests  results.  ...  So  far,  then,  as  the  Scholarship 
Examination  is  concerned,  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by 
substituting  the  Group  Test  for  any  part  of  it,  nor,  indeed, 
by  adding  the  Group  Test  to  it  in  its  present  form. 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        89 

This  is  a  flattening  report  by  an  unbiased  investi- 
gator on  the  application  of  the  tests  to  a  depart- 
ment where,  on  first  principles,  one  would  expect 
them  to  do  their  best  work.  The  concluding 
sentence  is  particularly  discouraging.  Almost  all 
experienced  teachers  and  administrators  will  endorse 
what  is  said  about  the  value  of  the  personal  inter- 
view. This  is  a  recognition  of  the  importance  of 
the  moral  elements  already  dealt  with.  But 
perhaps  Mr.  Bell  goes  too  far  when  he  denies  to  the 
tests  even  a  subordinate  place  in  determining  the 
claims  of  scholarship  candidates.  Even  on  the 
Rhodes  Scholarship  basis,  that  takes  account  of 
physical  and  social  as  well  as  intellectual  qualities, 
there  is  at  least  a  place  left  for  the  native  intelli- 
gence, and  the  intelligence  tests,  when  better 
developed,  will  certainly  be  of  great  help  here. 

Having  regard  to  the  present  state  of  develop- 
ment of  the  tests,  there  arises  for  the  plain,  straight- 
forward, conscientious  teacher  the  problem  of  how 
far  he  is  able,  and  how  far  he  ought,  to  take  part 
in  the  testing  of  his  pupils  by  the  new  methods. 
Modesty,  no  doubt,  plays  an  important  part  in 
making  some  of  us  disinclined  to  undertake  this 
sort  of  work ;  but  we  must  be  careful  not  to  let 
our  professional  conservatism  exercise  an  undue 
influence  here.  A  compromise  that  is  full  of  hope 
is  to  begin  by  acquiring,  at  any  rate,  a  working 
knowledge  of  the  tests  and  their  possibilities.  No 
teacher  should  be  in  the  humiliating  position  of 
not  knowing  what  the  tests  are,  and  how  they  are 
applied.  P.  B.  Ballard's  admirable  little  book, 
Mental  Tests,  can  be  mastered  in  a  week's  spare 


go        Standards  and  Mental  Tests 

time  ;  L.  M.  Terman's  The  Measurement  of  Intelli- 
gence, and  its  accompanying  Test  Material,  would 
not  demand  very  much  more  ;  while  the  National 
Intelligence  Test  (Harrap,  2s.  6d.  net)  may  be  dealt 
with  in  an  hour  or  two.  Acquainted  with  this 
literature,  the  teacher  is  in  a  position  to  make  up 
his  mind  about  the  value  of  the  system,  and  to 
come  to  a  reasoned  conclusion  regarding  his  responsi- 
bility in  the  matter.  Even  if  he  makes  up  his 
mind  that  this  sort  of  work  is  not  for  him,  he  will 
be  able  to  talk  intelligently  about  it,  and  to  take 
part  in  any  system  of  testing  that  may  be  imposed 
on  his  school,  either  by  the  head  or  by  some  outside 
body.  For  we  must  realise  that  testing  is  in  the  air, 
and  is  likely  to  become  much  more  common  in  the 
near  future,  even  if  those  critics  are  right  who 
maintain  that  it  has  had  its  day  and  by  and  by 
will  cease  to  be. 

In  actual  school  practice,  at  the  moment,  testing 
has  two  quite  distinct  spheres — (i)  the  testing  of 
normal  children ;  (ii)  the  testing  of  defectives  and 
supernormal  children.  With  regard  to  the  first, 
all  teachers  are  concerned,  whether  they  are 
prepared  or  not  to  take  an  active  part.  With 
regard  to  the  second,  the  matter  should  certainly 
be  left  to  the  specialists.  This  does  not  mean  that 
teachers  who  have  a  bent  that  way  should  not 
themselves  by  and  by  win  their  way  into  the 
specialist  grade.  Indeed,  it  is  highly  desirable  that 
as  many  teachers  as  are  drawn  that  way  should 
be  encouraged  to  go  on.  It  is  for  the  profession  to 
consider  whether  it  is  willing  that  a  portion  of  its 
field  should  be  handed  over  to  outside  practitioners. 


Standards  and  Mental  Tests        91 

Even  as  things  are,  at  least  some  teachers  are 
jealous  of  the  intrusion  of  the  doctors.  Are  we  to 
permit  or  encourage  the  intrusion  of  the  practising 
psychologist  ?  Elsewhere  "  I  have  dealt  with  that 
official  who  appears  to  be  hovering  on  the  horizon, 
and  whom  I  have  labelled  the  "  educational 
engineer.' '  When  this  official  is  firmly  in  the 
saddle,  the  professional  teacher  may  have  to 
submit  to  much  more  direction  than  he  has  had 
in  the  past.  The  only  way  to  save  our  educational 
liberty  is  to  make  ourselves  really  masters  of^oW 
craft,  both  in  theory  and  in  practice.  This  advice 
is  particularly  apposite  with  regard  to  the  educa- 
tional psychologist.  We  cannot  all  do  testing 
work :  we  have  neither  the  time  nor  the  skill. 
But  our  professional  honour  demands  that  we 
should  make  ourselves  familiar  with  the  system, 
so  that  we  may  appreciate  what  is  being  done. 
No  doubt  in  the  near  future  school  inspectors  of  all 
sorts  will  have  to  take  a  share  in  testing  of  the 
newer  type.  In  self-defence  teachers  will  need  to 
master  the  mysteries  of  a  process  that  may,  on 
occasion,  put  them  at  a  disadvantage,  if  they  do 
not  know  how  to  deal  with  it.  But  a  better  motive 
than  mere  defence  is  the  professional  one.  We  must 
master  the  principles  of  intelligence-testing,  because 
it  is  an  essential  part  of  our  equipment  as  self- 
respecting  craftsmen. 

1  Evolution  of  Educational  Theory,  pp.  381-84. 

[My  cordial  thanks  are  rendered  to  my  colleague  Prof. 
T.  P.  Nunn  for  reading  and  criticising  the  MS.  of  this 
chapter,  on  the  subject  of  which  he  is  an  acknowledged 
authority.] 


CHAPTER   IV 

SCALES    OF   ATTAINMENT 

PAGE  27  of  the  19 10  edition  of  Professor  Binet's 
Les  Idees  Modcrnes  sur  les  Enfants  presents 
a  ready-reckoner  of  instruction  that  we  have  seen 
rouses  the  amused  contempt  of  every  experienced 
British  elementary  teacher.  It  is  not  prepared  by 
M.  Binet  himself,  but  was  "  organised  by  M.  Vaney 
for  the  primary  schools  of  Paris."  The  attainments 
of  pupils  from  six  to  eleven  in  reading,  arithmetic, 
and  spelling  are  to  be  estimated  by  tests  for  five 
different  stages.  A  single  arithmetical  problem  at 
each  stage  is  all  that  is  supplied,  a  single  scrap  of 
dictation  including  only  twelve  words  is  to  meet 
the  needs  of  all  ages  for  spelling,  while  reading  has 
the  five  stages  marked  by  the  following  bare 
descriptive  terms  :  (i)  sub-syllabic  or  syllabic  ;  (ii) 
hesitating ;  (iii)  hesitating  or  fluent ;  (iv)  fluent ; 
(v)  fluent  or  expressive.  Still,  when  he  passes  from 
this  bald  and  unconvincing  programme  to  the 
elaborate  scales  now  provided  by  American  educa- 
tionists, the  expert  elementary  teacher  is  hardly 
better  pleased.  He  is  as  much  repelled  by  the 
American  complexity  as  by  the  French  simplicity. 

It  is  not  that  teachers  are   satisfied  with  the 
existing  rough-and-ready  ways  of  estimating  pro- 

92 


Scales  of  Attainment  93 

gress  in  school-work.  They  have  no  excessive  belief 
in  examinations  as  at  present  conducted,  and  in 
their  hearts  they  know  that  their  own  impressionist 
way  of  estimating  their  pupils'  work  is  not  quite 
reliable.  They  do  not  need  the  evidence  painfully 
gathered  by  American  investigators  to  prove  that 
the  markings  of  the  same  bits  of  written  work  by 
different  teachers  are  far  from  agreeing  with  one 
another.  They  long  for  an  objective  standard,  but 
they  are  suspicious  of  what  is  sometimes  presented 
to  them  as  supplying  their  needs.  The  intelligence 
tests  they  are  inclined  to  accept  without  much 
cavil,  for  they  are  based  on  more  or  less  technical 
psychological  investigations  that  they  feel  to  be 
outside  of  their  ordinary  professional  range. 
Besides,  after  all,  the  results  do  not  in  any  way 
reflect  upon  their  work  in  school.  No  one  can 
blame  the  teacher  for  the  low  IQ  of  his  pupils. 

When  it  comes  to  scales,  however,  a  new  element 
enters,  for  the  term  is  gradually  limiting  itself  to 
modes  of  estimating  the  results  of  the  work  done 
in  schools.  It  would  be  very  convenient  if  the 
term  test  could  be  definitely  limited  to  the  gradually 
expanding  series  of  problems  and  exercises  that 
have  for  aim  the  measurement  of  intelligence,  while 
scale  is  reserved  for  any  material  invented  for 
estimating  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  or  of  skill. 
Generally  speaking,  a  scale  implies  some  sort  of 
concrete  standard  by  reference  to  which  an  actual 
comparison  may  be  set  up.  We  shall  find,  for 
example,  that  the  handwriting  scale  consists  of  a 
set  of  standard  specimens.  This  sheet  of  specimens 
is  sometimes  placed  on  the  wall  of  the  schoolroom, 


94  Scales  of  Attainment 

and  it  even  has  a  technical  name,  "  graphometer," 
though  somehow  the  name  is  seldom  used.  There 
are  similar  concrete  scales  in  drawing,  spelling, 
composition.  In  arithmetic,  however,  the  scales 
consist  rather  in  sets  of  problems  that  are  stan- 
dardised, no  doubt,  but  are  not  represented  by  a 
sheet  that  may  be  used  for  purposes  of  direct  com- 
parison. The  same  thing  applies  to  geography, 
history,  music,  where  progress  is  estimated  by  a 
series  of  exercises  that  will  have  to  be  called  tests, 
unless  we  can  agree  upon  the  distinction  that 
limits  this  term  to  the  measurement  of  intelligence 
apart  from  what  it  is  exercised  upon,  while  scale  is 
used  to  denote  all  means  of  measuring  the  acquire- 
ment of  knowledge  or  skill. 

Since  this  limitation  would  make  the  scales  cover 
the  ground  formerly  regarded  as  the  special  province 
of  external  examiners,  it  is  natural  that  teachers 
should  look  upon  them  with  some  degree  of  sus- 
picion. It  is  true  that  scales  may  well  be  used  by 
the  teachers  themselves  as  a  means  of  estimating 
the  success  of  their  work  so  as  to  improve  it  wherever 
possible.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  they  may 
be  used  by  others  with  the  good,  old-fashioned 
purpose  of  criticising  the  teacher's  work.  It  is 
natural,  therefore,  that  they  should  look  askance 
at  the  new  scales.  This  fact  may  to  some  extent 
account  for  the  other  fact  that  almost  all  the 
investigations  in  this  department  have  been  made 
on  the  western  side  of  the  Atlantic,  where  the 
scourge  of  examinations  is  not  so  severe.  It  is 
encouraging  for  British  teachers  to  learn,  all  the 
same,  that  the  movement  in  America  has  reached 


Scales  of  Attainment  95 

that  stage  that  calls  for  the  direct  co-operation  of 
the  teachers  themselves.  Naturally,  at  the  begin- 
ning the  matter  was  left  largely  in  the  hands  of 
experts  in  psychology  and  education  :  university 
people  and  directors  and  superintendents  of  schools. 
But  now  there  has  been  sufficient  progress  to  make 
it  possible  for  the  ordinary  intelligent  teacher  to 
take  a  hand,  and  use  the  acquired  material  on  his 
own  account. 

The  whole  movement  is  quite  a  recent  one,  going 
no  further  back  than  to  1864,  at  which  date, 
according  to  Professor  Thorndike,  the  first  "Scale 
Book  "  in  writing  was  prepared  by  the  Rev.  George 
Fisher,  of  the  Greenwich  Hospital  School.  The 
American  founder  of  scales  was  Dr.  J.  M.  Rice, 
who,  after  a  course  under  German  psychologists, 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  none  of  his  fellow- 
schoolmen  really  knew  the  facts  of  the  educational 
situation, 

"  because  there  were  no  standards  to  serve  as  guides. 
Then  one  day  the  idea  flashed  through  my  mind  that  the 
way  to  settle  the  question  was  to  try  it  out.  For  a  begin- 
ning, I  decided  to  take  spelling,  and  on  that  very  day  I 
made  up  a  list  of  50  words,  with  the  view  of  giving  them  as 
a  test  to  the  pupils  of  the  schools  as  I  went  on  my  tour 
from  town  to  town.  I  have  no  record  of  the  date  of  the 
inspiration,  but  I  think  it  was  some  time  in  October  1894."  1 

One's  mind  is  irresistibly  directed  to  the  ruins  of 
the  Capitol  at  Rome,  but,  after  all,  Dr.  Rice  is 
entitled  to  take  himself  a  little  seriously,  for  the 

1  The  Seventeenth  Year-book  of  the  National  Society  for 
the  Study  of  Education,  Part  II,  p.  11. 


96  Scales  of  Attainment 

movement  he  began  that  October  day  is  having 
somewhat  important  developments. 

Though  in  England  our  pioneer  scale-maker  did 
not  succeed  in  setting  on  foot  a  deliberate  cult  of 
scales  in  the  various  school  subjects,  such  scales 
developed  to  some  extent  of  themselves,  during  the 
lamentable  period  of  individual  examinations  held 
to  justify  the  payment  by  results.  In  consequence 
of  the  extremely  wide  application  of  test-cards  in 
arithmetic  all  over  the  country,  a  sort  of  scale  in 
that  subject  evolved  itself,  though  it  was  never 
reduced  to  a  systematic  statement.  Experienced 
school  inspectors  in  the  old  days  could  have  set 
forth  with  no  difficulty  an  arithmetical  scale  that 
could  have  held  its  own  with  the  Courtis  or  any 
other  of  the  new  ones.  But  in  handwriting  the 
inspectors  depended  on  the  ordinary  general  impres- 
sion, so  that  Professor  Thorndike  had  an  entirely 
fresh  field  when  he  issued  his  first  scale  in  19 10, 
which  came  to  be  known  in  England  through  being 
incorporated  in  his  Education :  A  First  Book, 
in  1912. 

In  the  evaluation  of  handwriting  there  is  much 
more  involved  than  is  at  first  apparent.  In  the 
charmingly  direct  way  of  our  old  school  method 
books  the  three  essentials  of  good  writing  are  stated 
to  be  legibility,  elegance,  and  speed.  Thorndike 
neglected  the  speed  with  which  his  specimens  were 
produced,  and  founded  his  decisions  on  the  opinions 
experts  formed  on  a  basis  that  included  the  qualities 
of  appearance  and  legibility.  His  method  of  pre- 
paring his  scale  consisted  in  procuring  from  the 
pupils  in  the  three  highest  grades  of  the  ordinary 


Scales  of  Attainment  97 

American  Public  Schools  one  thousand  specimens  of 
handwriting  of  all  degrees  of  merit.  In  the  first 
rough  classification  it  came  about  that  different 
investigators  found  that,  without  any  previous 
theorising  on  the  matter,  the  papers  sorted  them- 
selves out  into  eleven  groups.  Accordingly,  the 
thousand  papers  were  sent  to  one  after  another  of 
forty  persons  accepted  as  experts  in  the  criticism  of 
handwriting,  with  the  request  that  each  of  them 
should  arrange  the  thousand  specimens  into  eleven 
groups.  To  secure  accuracy,  each  expert  did  the 
grouping  two  or  three  times,  and  his  final  result  was 
the  average  mark  he  allotted  to  each  specimen. 
Finally,  the  average  of  the  forty  different  persons' 
ranking  gave  the  final  rank  of  each  specimen.  In 
this  way  a  series  of  groups  was  obtained,  each  being 
separated  by  approximately  equal  differences  in 
merit.  Typical  specimens  of  each  group  were 
selected,  and  thus  a  scale  was  provided  with  which 
any  given  piece  of  handwriting  could  be  compared, 
and  as  a  result  placed  in  one  or  other  of  the  groups. 
If  there  was  no  one  group  that  seemed  to  be  the 
exact  place  for  a  given  fresh  specimen,  it  could  be 
placed  between  two  of  the  groups,  and  if  great 
accuracy  were  aimed  at,  it  might  have  a  decimal 
added.  Thus  a  specimen  that  was  not  good  enough 
for  group  eight,  but  was  nearer  eight  than  seven, 
might  be  labelled  7-6  or  77. 

One  obvious  difficulty  is  that  handwriting  differs 
in  style  and  appearance  apart  from  legibility,  so  in 
each  group  three  specimens  were  selected,  each 
exemplifying  a  different  style,  though  all  three  were 
regarded  as  equal  in  general  merit. 

7 


98  Scales  of  Attainment 

Dr.  Leonard  P.  Ayres,  of  the  Russell  Sage  Founda- 
tion, New  York,  was  not  pleased  with  a  scale  that 
mixed  up  elegance  and  legibility,  so  he  prepared  one 
of  his  own,  based  entirely  upon  legibility.     It  was 
found  easy  to  get  a  numerical  coefficient  of  legibility 
by  discovering  the  time  taken  to  read  a  given  piece 
of   handwriting.     Specimens   of   handwriting  were 
obtained  in  the  form  of  disconnected  words  that  did 
not  make  sense.     This  was  necessary  in  order  that 
reading  should  not  depend  on  context,  and  that  the 
memory  of  the  tester  should  not  be  called  into  play. 
All  manner  of  further  precautions  were  taken,  such 
as  repeating  the  reading  of  the  first  batch  of  papers 
after  the  readers  had  got  into  the  swing  of  the  thing, 
for  at  first  they  would  probably  read  a  little  slower, 
and  the  first  marking  would  be  inaccurate.     Writing 
was  thus  ranked  according  to  the  number  of  words 
read  per  minute.     It  was  found  that  the  rate  of 
reading  was  130*2  words  per  minute  for  the  worst 
writing  and  209-6  for  the  best.     Naturally,  Ayres 
arranged  his  scale  into  eight  groups,  according  to  the 
Thorndike  plan,  with  the  three  different  styles  in 
each  case. 

The  critical  teacher  faced  with  either  of  these 
scales  at  once  realises  that  in  the  ultimate  resort 
the  decision  lies  with  him.  It  is  for  him  to  place 
in  the  appropriate  group  each  specimen  his  pupils 
provide  him.  He  cannot  escape  that  responsibility. 
In  the  last  resort,  the  scale  itself  is  not  objective. 
It  is  the  result  of  a  series  of  particularly  competent 
subjective  judgments  so  arranged  as  to  control  each 
other  and  lead  to  a  reliable  average.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  but  that  the  scale  in  itself  is  a  practical 


Scales  of  Attainment  99 

help  to  the  teacher  who  uses  it,  even  if  in  the  first 
instance  and  in  the  final  application  the  scale 
depends  upon  a  subjective  decision.  Such  scales 
have  really  two  functions,  one  the  provision  of  a 
standard  as  nearly  objective  as  possible,  the  other 
the  stimulation  of  the  critical  powers  of  the  person 
who  uses  them.  Not  only  do  they  serve  as  measur- 
ing-rods, but,  as  Professor  Thorndike  observes,  they 
have  an  excellent  effect  upon  those  who  apply  them 
"  by  creating  in  the  minds  of  teachers  a  mental 
standard  to  be  used  in  even  the  most  casual  ratings 
of  everyday  school  life." 

Yet  all  the  way  through,  both  in  reaching  the 
actual  paper  scale  and  in  using  it  as  a  basis  of 
estimating  the  merit  of  a  particular  specimen  of 
handwriting,  there  is  a  continual  reference  to  the 
opinion  of  this  or  that  investigator.  In  writings  on 
the  subject  the  phrase  is  constantly  occurring, 
"  by  So-and-So's  scoring  "  —  by  Dr.  Rice's  scoring, 
by  Dr.  Stone's  scoring,  by  Dr.  Thorndike's  scoring. 
The  general  effect  is  one  of  uncertainty  and  doubt. 
It  is  true  that  confidence  comes  when  such  phrases 
are  used  as  "  when  a  specimen  is  regarded  by 
impartial  judges  as  falling  exactly  between  n  and 
13,  it  may  be  safely  marked  12."  But  behind  this 
is  the  demand  for  the  backing  of  numbers,  and  we 
long  for  a  scale  that  can  be  applied  by  ourselves 
with  confidence  that  when  another  tester  comes 
along  his  scoring  will  exactly  coincide  with  ours, 
automatically  and  as  a  matter  of  course. 

If  the  ordinary  successful  practical  teacher  were 
asked  which  of  the  school  subjects  lends  itself  best 
to  scale-making,  he  would  almost  certainly  choose 


ioo  Scales  of  Attainment 

arithmetic.  There  is  something  very  alluring  in  the 
definite  Right  or  Wrong  with  which  each  attempt 
may  be  labelled.  There  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
less  surprise  shown  at  an  arithmetic  scale  than  at 
any  other.  Teachers  have  been  for  long  accustomed 
to  a  series  of  problems  of  different  degrees  of  difficulty 
accepted  as  a  standard  of  efficiency  in  this  subject. 
And  yet  in  actual  practice  arithmetic  is  found  to 
be  more  than  usually  refractory  material  for  scale- 
making.  When  Mr.  S.  A.  Courtis  started  on  this 
work,  he  found,  to  his  surprise,  that  pupils  differed 
considerably  in  their  ability  to  deal  with  each  of  the 
four  primary  operations.  They  might  be  excellent 
at  addition,  but  weak  in  multiplication,  and  just 
moderate  at  subtraction.  In  other  words,  each  has 
a  different  coefficient  of  ability  for  the  different 
arithmetical  operations,  and  so  far  as  investigations 
as  yet  have  gone,  it  would  appear  as  if  this  original 
coefficient  remains  practically  unchanged  through 
life.  In  any  case,  it  is  assumed  that  for  a  scale  in 
arithmetic  it  is  sufficient  to  include  the  four  primary 
operations,  as  all  the  rest  of  arithmetic  is  merely  an 
extension  of  the  application  of  these.  This,  indeed, 
is  only  one  of  the  many  ways  in  which  the  new  con- 
ception of  arithmetic  is  affecting  practice.  The 
subject  is  no  longer  treated  as  essentially  a  separate 
subject,  after  the  preliminaries  are  mastered,  but 
as  the  science  or  the  study  of  the  quantitative  aspect 
of  human  activities. 

Courtis'  arithmetic  scales,  which  are  at  present 
by  far  the  most  commonly  used  in  the  world,  are 
very  simple  and  convey  an  impression  of  genial 
familiarity   to   our   English   teachers.     The   crude 


Scales  of  Attainment  101 


A  Series  have  now  disappeared  ana  their  B  successors 
consist  of  separate  groups  of  addition,  subtraction, 
multiplication,  and  division  examples,  the  members 
of  each  group  being  of  approximately  equal  diffi- 
culty. Mr.  Courtis  is  anxious  to  make  us  realise 
that  they  are  "  neither  lesson-sheets  nor  examination 
papers."  They  are  to  be  used  as  measuring-rods, 
and  though  they  cannot  be  guaranteed  to  be  abso- 
lutely equal,  any  one  of  the  rods  may  be  confidently 
used  as  a  standard.  The  scales  are  intended  to  be 
applied  to  all  the  grades,  for  there  is  no  more  need 
to  have  a  special  scale  for  each  grade  than  there  is 
to  have  a  special  foot-rule  for  measuring  a  particular 
group  of  men.  The  same  scale  may  be  applied  in 
such  a  way  that  the  elements  of  speed  and  accuracy 
may  come  in  as  differentiating  influences  and  set  up 
a  standard  of  grading.  It  is  admitted  that  the 
Courtis  scales  set  up  a  much  higher  demand  than 
that  which  would  satisfy  business  conditions,  for 
there  is  nothing  more  surprising  to  the  outsider 
than  the  simplicity  of  the  arithmetical  processes 
demanded  in  ordinary  business.  Certainly  difficul- 
ties of  the  most  distracting  kind  occur,  but  these  do 
not  involve  the  mere  arithmetical  processes.  Teachers 
who  are  harassed  by  the  exorbitant  demands  of  the 
heads  of  counting-houses,  might  do  worse  than  turn 
to  G.  M.  Wilson's  A  Survey  of  the  Social  and  Business 
Usage  of  Arithmetic.1 

Teachers  have  not  been  content  with  scales  that 

merely  determine  attainment.     They  want  means 

of  discovering  not  only  to  what  extent  pupils  go 

wrong,  but  in  what  directions  they  go  wrong,  and 

1  Teachers'  College  Bureau  of  Publications. 


102  Scales  of  Attainment 


why.  Accordingly,  they  seek  out  diagnostic  scales. 
At  first  the  scales  of  Dr.  Clifford  Woody  had  not 
this  special  end  in  view,  but  they  gradually  so 
developed  as  to  lend  themselves  to  the  teachers' 
purpose,  and  enabled  them  to  analyse  out  processes, 
and  locate  the  sources  of  error.  What  differentiates 
them  primarily  from  the  Courtis  scales  is  that  they 
are  based  on  an  increasing  grade  of  difficulty,  instead 
of  on  the  nearest  approach  to  equality.  The 
Woody  scales  have  to  pay  for  their  increased  useful- 
ness in  one  direction  by  a  certain  loss  of  exactness 
in  another.  For  they  introduce  that  complication 
that  English  teachers  recognise  as  so  baffling,  the 
evaluation  of  the  processes  as  contrasted  with  the 
actual  results.  An  "  answer  "  is  obviously  correct 
or  incorrect ;  it  admits  of  no  argument.  But  the 
process  by  which  that  answer  has  been  reached 
opens  the  flood-gates  of  controversy.  Many  prac- 
tical teachers  cut  the  knot  by  saying  that  the 
ultimate  test  is  accuracy ;  if  the  answer  is  wrong, 
it  is  of  no  consequence  how  it  was  attained.  Most 
teachers,  however,  take  the  more  reasonable  view 
that  so  long  as  the  pupil  is  a  pupil,  his  methods  are 
of  great  importance.  When  he  leaves  school,  it  is, 
no  doubt,  reasonable  enough  to  maintain  that  the 
only  things  that  interest  his  employers  are  the 
accuracy  of  his  result  and  the  speed  with  which  he 
reaches  it.  But  in  school  we  are  still  interested  in 
the  process,  and  therefore  welcome  the  diagnostic 
qualities  that  belong  to  some  of  the  scales.  For 
the  primary  purpose  of  scales,  however,  it  is  not 
essential  that  we  should  use  complicated  arith- 
metical problems,  and,  in  fact,  the  more  complicated 


Scales  of  Attainment  103 

these  become  the  more  we  pass  from  pure  arithmetic 
into  the  complex  maze  of  life  itself. 

Some  of  the  other  subjects  lend  themselves  more 
to  objective  treatment.  Take  spelling,  for  example. 
Here  the  good,  old-fashioned  way  was  to  test  pupils 
by  setting  a  large  number  of  particularly  difficult 
words,  and  by  judging  the  best  speller  to  be  the 
person  who  succeeded  with  the  greatest  number. 
As  an  absolute  test,  there  is  not  much  to  be  said 
against  it,  but  as  a  scale  to  be  used  in  school- work 
it  leaves  much  to  be  desired.  It  is  quite  possible 
to  make  a  selection  of  words  according  to  their 
difficulty  as  proved  by  experimental  methods,  and 
to  use  this  list  as  a  test.  Each  such  word  could  be 
supplied  with  a  coefficient  of  difficulty  and  its 
value  as* a  test  rated  accordingly. 

Professor  W.  Franklin  Jones  has  provided  such  a 
list  of  one  hundred  words  graded  in  this  way,  each 
word  being  supplied  with  a  figure  indicating  the 
number  of  times  it  had  been  misspelled  in  the  tests 
by  means  of  which  the  selection  was  made.  The 
top  of  the  list  is  occupied  by  which,  accompanied  by 
the  figure  321.  Next  come  their  with  316  and  there 
with  296.  Obviously,  these  two  should  in  some 
way  or  other  be  counted  as  one.  It  is  not  so  much 
that  the  children  cannot  spell  either  of  these  words, 
as  that  they  are  so  often  in  doubt  which  is  which. 
The  same  applies  to  here  (278)  and  hear  (280).  But 
all  such  lists  contain  surprises  for  the  teacher. 
Who,  for  example,  would  regard  they  as  a  270 
error  word,  while  ache  accounts  for  no  more  than 
192,  or  that  some  could  lead  270  astray,  while 
believe  is  content  with  212  ?     Supposing  a  pupil 


104 


Scales  of  Attainment 


learnt  to  spell  correctly  the  list  of  one  hundred 
words  that  Professor  Jones  whimsically  calls 
"  spelling  demons,"  he  would  be  in  a  much  better 
case  than  before,  except  in  the  case  of  the  words 
with  the  same  sound  :  which  suggests  the  prepara- 
tion of  a  more  extensive  list  that  would  really 
account  for  all  the  more  common  sources  of  disaster. 
The  idea  of  such  a  list  is  certainly  not  new,  but  the 
nature  of  the  recent  lists  is  quite  different  from  that 
of  the  lists  of  former  times.  Words  are  selected  not 
because  of  their  difficulty,  but  of  the  frequency 
with  which  they  occur.  The  new  principle  is  that 
the  words  to  be  taught  are  those  that  are  most 
likely  to  be  needed.  Dr.  Daniel  Starch,  for  example, 
tabulated  40,000  consecutive  words,  about  1,000 
from  each  of  forty  authors  in  eleven  current  high- 
grade  magazines.  This  gave  5,903  different  words, 
as  follows  : 


3,111  words  occurred  each  once. 


,009 

t$ 

,, 

,,    twice. 

512 

ti 

»> 

,     three  times. 

280 

,, 

,, 

„     four  times. 

189 

» » 

, 

,     five  times. 

121 

M 

, 

,    six  times. 

97 

,, 

M 

„     seven  times. 

82 

it 

1 

,     eight  times. 

53 

»» 

, 

,     nine  times. 

225 

»»                      1 

•                       1 

,     ten  to  nineteen  times. 

224 

»>                      1 

»                       1 

,     twenty  or  more  times.1 

Comparing  this  list  with  a  similar  one  prepared 
by  Mr.  Eldridge  of   Buffalo,  Dr.  Starch  calculates 
that  the  words  occurring  three  or  more  times  on 
1  Educational  Psychology,  p.  328. 


Scales  of  Attainment  .   105 

both  lists  make  up  more  than  "  nine-tenths  of  all 
running  words."  By  selecting  all  the  words  that 
occur  three  or  more  times  on  both  lists,  a  total  of 
2,626  words  is  attained,  and  a  pupil  who  masters 
this  list  has  an  adequate  preparation  for  ordinary 
life  in  the  way  of  spelling. 

The  schoolroom,  however,  is  not  quite  content 
with  this  general  guidance :  it  wants  a  more 
detailed  analysis.  This  is  provided  by  Dr.  Leonard 
P.  Ayres.  By  elaborate  analyses  he  has  reached 
what  he  is  convinced  is  the  thousand  most  commonly 
used  words  in  the  English  language,  and  has  had 
them  tested  by  1,400,000  spellings  made  by  70,000 
pupils  in  84  cities  of  the  United  States.  As  a 
result,  he  has  been  able  to  arrange  his  thousand 
words  into  twenty-six  columns,  one  for  each  letter 
of  the  alphabet,  and  these  groups  are  correlated  to 
the  different  grades  of  an  American  school,  in  such 
a  way  that  the  percentage  of  correct  spellings  that 
should  be  found  in  every  average  class  can  be 
determined  by  inspection.  We  have,  in  fact, 
reached  something  not  very  far  from  an  objective 
standard,  so  far  as  spelling  is  concerned.1 

In  the  matter  of  oral  reading,  there  is  not  much 
change  in  the  newer  tests.  Suitable  paragraphs 
are  prepared  for  the  tests  on  separate  sheets,  and 

1  Copies  of  this  table  may  be  had  for  five  cents  apiece 
from  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation,  Division  of  Education, 
130  East  22nd  Street,  New  York  City.  But  the  table  is 
not  of  nearly  so  much  use  to  an  English  teacher  as  to  an 
American.  The  usages  of  the  two  countries  are  by  no 
means  identical,  and  words  that  are  the  most  frequently 
used  there  are  not  always  the  most  common  here. 


106  Scales  of  Attainment 

the  time  taken  is  recorded  with  a  stop-watch.  For 
the  actual  testing,  however,  the  teacher  has  to 
depend  on  his  own  impressions.  No  doubt  an 
advance  has  been  made  in  the  way  of  classifying 
errors.  These  are  arranged  under  six  headings  : 
complete  mispronunciation,  partial  mispronuncia- 
tion, omissions,  substitutions,  insertions,  repetitions. 
The  scoring  is  elaborate,  and  on  the  whole  the  scheme 
is  an  improvement.  But  it  is  in  the  testing  of  silent 
reading  that  the  newer  methods  get  their  chance. 
The  Monroe  Standardised  Silent  Reading  Tests  take 
the  very  simple  plan  of  giving  prepared  pieces  for 
silent  reading,  each  piece  being  accompanied  by  a 
suitable  question  or  tiny  problem  to  test  whether 
the  matter  has  been  understood.  The  rate  of 
reading  is  also  recorded,  for  it  is  found  that  there 
is  a  high  correlation  between  the  rate  and  the 
degree  of  comprehension.  Generally  speaking,  the 
quicker  readers  understand  more  completely.  But 
it  is  possible  to  test  comprehension  apart  altogether 
from  speed  of  reading,  and,  in  fact,  in  Dr.  Thorn- 
dike's  scheme  the  pupils  are  allowed  to  read  and 
reread  their  pieces  as  often  as  they  wish. 

Dr.  Starch,  however,  makes  time  an  essential 
element  in  his  tests.  Each  pupil  is  allowed  to  read 
for  just  thirty  seconds,  then  he  must  turn  over  his 
printed  sheet  and  write  on  the  back  of  it  as  much 
as  he  can  remember  of  what  he  has  read.  Then 
what  seems  a  curiously  mechanical  method  is 
followed  in  estimating  the  comprehension  of  the 
meaning.  The  number  of  written  words  that 
accurately  reproduce  the  ideas  of  the  original  passage 
is  taken  as  the  score  made  by  the  pupil.    All  the 


Scales  of  Attainment  107 

words  that  misrepresent  what  the  original  passage 
meant  are  struck  out ;  all  words  dealing  with  ideas 
not  in  the  original  are  also  cut  out.  So  are  all 
words  that  repeat  ideas  already  expressed.  Un- 
satisfactory as  this  appears  to  be  at  first  sight,  it 
seems  to  get  fairly  accurate  results,  and  it  has  been 
successfully  applied  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  following  table  will  not  be  of  so  much  use 
to  English  readers  as  to  American.  But  a  general 
idea  of  its  meaning  may  be  had  by  treating  the  first 
grade  as  representing  the  work  of  the  seventh  year 
(i.e.  from  6  to  7),  the  second  the  eighth,  and  so  on. 


Grade. 

Speed  of  reading 

Comprehension 

(words 

per  second) . 

(words  written). 

I. 

i-5 

15 

II. 

1-8 

20 

III. 

2-1 

24 

IV. 

2-4 

28 

V. 

2-8 

33 

VI. 

3*2 

38 

VII. 

3'6 

45 

VIII. 

4-0 

5o  * 

It  may  be  added  for  purposes  of  comparison  that 
the  result  of  testing  several  classes  of  experienced 
secondary  schoolmistresses  in  England  gave  an 
average  rate  per  second  of  6*3. 

Dr.  Starch  has  been  challenged  for  mixing  up 
English  composition  with  his  search  for  an  index 
of  comprehension,  but  replies  that  if  written  work 
is  a  handicap,  it  applies  to  all  the  persons  tested, 
and  he  is  very  sceptical  about  the  existence  of  pupils 
who  are  at  a   distinct    disadvantage  in  writing   as 

1  The  Scientific  Measurement  of  Class-room  Products, 
Chapman  and  Rush,  p.  93. 


108  Scales  of  Attainment 

compared  with  speaking.  About  this  there  may  be 
difference  of  opinion,  but  it  at  least  adds  zest  to 
our  quest  for  a  scale  in  English  composition.  It  is 
at  this  stage  that  we  appear  to  get  out  of  our 
depth,  which  is  a  pity,  for  we  have  now  reached 
just  that  point  at  which  vague  personal  impressions 
have  been  in  the  past  the  guiding  principle.  Mark- 
ing compositions,  and  particularly  essays,  has 
always  been  admitted  to  be  a  matter  in  which  the 
personal  equation  counts  most  heavily  in  school- 
work.  It  is  because  of  this  that  many  teachers 
object  to  give  numerical  marks  for  composition 
and  confine  themselves  to  a  letter  or  a  phrase. 
An  alpha,  a  beta,  or  a  gamma  is  as  far  as  such  teachers 
care  to  go.  But  our  new  scale-makers  are  not 
daunted  even  by  the  perils  of  composition,  and 
set  methodically  about  their  work.  The  earliest 
attempts  of  Rice,  Bliss,  and  Courtis  are  summarily 
dismissed  as  being  so  lacking  in  precision  as  not  to 
deserve  further  consideration,  at  which  we  cannot 
pretend  to  be  surprised,  since  these  primitive 
creatures  knew  no  better  than  to  use  such  terms  as 
excellent,  good,  poor,  and  other  familiar  ways  of 
expressing  their  general  impression. 

In  The  Teachers  College  Record  for  September 
1912,  Dr.  Milo  B.  Hillegas  produced  A  Scale  for  the 
Measurement  of  Quality  in  English  Composition  by 
Young  People,  which  consists  of  ten  specimen  copies 
of  composition  arranged  in  order  of  merit.  When 
the  question  is  raised  about  the  basis  on  which 
merit  is  to  be  estimated,  Dr.  Hillegas  appears  to 
get  out  of  the  corner  with  some  address.  The  term 
merit  he  assures  us  "  means  just  that  quality  which 


Scales  of  Attainment  109 

competent  persons  commonly  consider  as  merit, 
and  the  scale  measures  just  this  quality."  As  the 
enquirer  naturally  considers  himself  a  competent 
person,  he  has  the  answer  within  himself,  and  Dr. 
Hillegas  departs  in  peace,  leaving,  however,  a  sorely 
perplexed  enquirer  behind  him.  When  he  examines 
the  specimens,  the  teacher  does  not  know  what 
exactly  to  do  with  them.  The  sample  marked  zero 
is  mere  incoherent  nonsense,  but  the  rest  do  seem 
to  justify  the  order  in  which  they  have  been  placed. 
Yet  the  teacher  who  comes  to  this  scale  with  a 
fresh  composition  in  his  hand,  has  his  work  cut  out 
to  fit  it  into  the  proper  group.  There  are  so  many 
different  things  to  consider.  What  is  called  the 
Nassau  County  Supplement  to  the  Hillegas  Scale 
does  seem  to  have  proved  of  assistance  to  the  teachers 
who  used  it,  but,  in  all  probability,  the  real  benefit 
they  received  was  in  the  added  interest  of  a  new 
method,  and  the  attention  they  thus  gave  to  the 
elements  that  make  up  the  merit  of  a  composition. 

One  objection  to  this  scale  is  that  it  gives  at  each 
stage  only  one  kind  of  composition,  so  the  Public 
Schools  of  Newton,  Massachusetts,  developed  the 
scale  so  that  it  had  four  distinct  groups  of  specimens, 
one  group  narrative,  another  descriptive,  a  third 
expository,  and  the  fourth  argumentative.  This 
helped  matters  to  some  extent,  but  the  greatest 
improvement  consists  in  the  classification  of  the 
errors  to  be  noted  and  the  amount  of  deduction  to 
be  made  in  respect  of  each.  On  what  is  called  the 
Willing  Composition  Scale,  compositions  are  graded 
from  two  standpoints,  the  subject-matter  and  the 
form.     The  material  used  in  this  scale  is  purely 


no  Scales  of  Attainment 

narrative,  but  the  principle  can  be  applied  to  all 
forms.  We  have,  therefore,  in  the  first  instance 
the  story- value,  or  the  descriptive  value,  or  the 
expository  value,  or  the  argumentative  value  :  then 
in  the  second  place  the  value  as  form.  With  a 
careful  analysis  of  the  most  common  errors  under 
such  heads  as  Use  of  Capitals,  Punctuation,  Syntax, 
all  the  commoner  errors  can  be  compared  and 
estimated  and  receive  a  standard  negative  value, 
so  that  the  teacher  may  feel  more  confidence  than 
before  that  his  grading  will  remain  steady,  and  will 
stand  comparison  with  the  grading  of  his  fellows. 

When  we  pass  to  drawing,  we  get  rather  a  shock 
at  being  presented,  by  Professor  Thorndike,  with  a 
sheet  of  fourteen  sketches,  each  with  its  mark- value 
plainly  indicated  with  the  usual  decimal  accompani- 
ments. They  range  from  what  might  pass  for  a 
cell  under  the  microscope,  but  is  marked  as  quite 
worthless,  up  to  a  very  effective  head  in  shade. 
As  the  specimens  have  been  arranged  according  to 
the  judgment  of  "  about  400  artists,  teachers  of 
drawing,  and  men  expert  in  education  in  general," 
we  must  accept  them  as  they  stand.  It  appears, 
however,  that  Dr.  Thorndike,  with  his  usual  clear 
judgment,  is  quite  aware  of  the  limits  within  which 
his  artistic  colleagues  can  be  depended  upon.  He 
says  :  "If  the  same  judge  should  so  rate  a  thousand 
drawings,  and  then,  putting  these  ratings  aside, 
rate  the  thousand  over  again,  he  would  vary  often 
by  more  than  half  a  '  merit '  from  his  previous 
judgments."  What,  however,  gives  value  to  the 
scale,  and  will  please  practical  teachers,  is  the  fact 
that  it  stood  an  actual  test. 


Scales  of  Attainment  in 

"  Ten  teachers  measured  the  merit  of  a  drawing  by  the 
use  of  the  scale,  and  varied  only  4  points  all  told.  Ten 
other  teachers  measured  the  merits  of  the  same  drawing 
without  the  scale.  They  were  instructed  to  grade  the 
drawings  from  o  to  17.  They  showed  a  variation  of  14 
points,  or  nearly  four  times  as  much  variation  without  the 
scale  as  with  it."  x 

This  system  of  testing  has  spread  to  practically 
all  the  subjects  of  the  school  curriculum,  though  it 
can  hardly  be  said  that  actual  scales  are  in  existence. 
Yet  we  find  A  Scale  for  Measuring  Ability  of  Children 
in  Geography  in  Grades  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  called  the 
Hahn  Lackey  Scale.  It  consists  mainly  of  questions 
and  problems,  and  as  these  bear  largely  on  the 
informational  side  of  the  subject,  they  are  not  so 
valuable  as  they  would  be  if  they  contrived  to  get 
closer  to  what  specialists  are  fond  of  calling  the 
geographical  sense. 

The  correlation  of  the  scales  with  the  age  of  the 
pupils,  naturally  leads  to  the  establishment  of 
certain  age  standards  corresponding  to  what  we 
found  in  the  intelligence  tests.  Indeed,  the  new 
American  scales  appear  to  have  crystallised  out  an 
idea  that  was  implicit  in  the  attitude  our  own 
school  inspectors  felt  bound  to  take  up  with  regard 
to  the  more  or  less  standardised  tests  that  they 
carried  about  with  them  throughout  the  country. 
They  were  hovering  on  the  brink  of  discovering  or 
inventing — which  you  will— the  "  norm  "  that  is 
now  cutting  such  a  pretty  figure  in  American  and 
even  British  educational  discussions.1    This  term 

1  Wilson  and  Hoke,  How  to  Measure,  p.  184. 

2  In  point  of  fact,  several  of  my  inspector  friends  during 
the    'eighties   relieved    the    monotony   of   their   journeys 


ii2  Scales  of  Attainment 


indicates  what  wide  investigation  proves  to  be,  in 
a  given  subject,  the  attainment  characteristic  of  a 
given  age.  One  of  the  best  examples  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Ayres  Spelling  Table,  where  we  have  the 
words  so  arranged  that  the  percentage  of  errors  in 
each  of  the  groups  is  so  worked  out  as  to  give  the 
norm  for  each  grade  or  age  that  is  tested  by  the 
group.  So  with  the  Courtis  scales  of  arithmetic 
and  the  various  writing  scales  :  growing  experience 
is  making  it  increasingly  possible  to  establish  norms 
that  may  be  used  with  confidence.  In  fact,  we  are 
gradually  approaching  a  position  in  which  a  teacher 
in  an  isolated  school  may  be  able  to  test  his  pupils 
in  such  a  way  as  to  put  them  into  the  same  balances 
as  their  more  fortunate  coevals  in  populous  centres. 
We  are  only  approaching :  we  are  far  from  having 
attained.  So  we  need  not  yet  hoist  danger-signals 
to  warn  against  the  temptations  of  adopting  a  too 
mechanical  or  mathematical  view* of  the  standing 
of  our  pupils.  In  the  meantime,  our  approach  to 
accuracy  in  measuring  the  products  of  our  school- 
work  is  something  to  rejoice  over.  The  difficulties 
yet  to  be  faced  will,  no  doubt,  be  sufficient  to  brace 
us  against  the  snares  of  an  insidious  simplicity  that 
might  blind  us  to  the  dangers  of  neglecting  whole- 
some human  idiosyncrasies.  We  must  never  lose 
the  individual  in  the  type  ;  but  the  type  has  a 
high  value  as  an  aid  to  the  understanding  of  the 
individual. 

by  calculations,  that  resulted  in  what  were  practically 
norms  in  arithmetic  for  their  districts. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   THE    CLASS 

THERE  are  three  terms  that  are  always  getting 
in  each  other's  way  in  the  study  of  educational 
questions  :  individuality,  personality,  and  character. 
The  last  may  be  conveniently  marked  off  from  the 
other  two,  because  it  generally  carries  with  it  the 
idea  of  moral  evaluation.  When  we  refer  to  a  man's 
character,  we  almost  invariably  have  in  the  back- 
ground some  sort  of  estimate  of  his  moral  standing. 
Individuality  has  a  corresponding  limitation  on  the 
biological  side.  No  doubt  the  schoolmen  spent  some 
centuries  in  failing  to  discover  the  exact  nature  of 
individuation,  but  the  biologist  has  no  difficulty,  in 
most  cases,  in  saying  precisely  what  an  individual 
is.  For  him  it  is  a  separate  organism  existing 
independently  as  a  self-sufficient  unity.  To  be  sure, 
there  are  certain  borderland  cases,  notably  among 
the  polyzoa,  but  in  the  higher  ranges  of  animal  life, 
which  alone  interest  us  here,  there  is  no  room  for 
doubt.  When  applied  to  human  beings,  however, 
the  term  individuality  carries  with  it  something 
more  than  the  biological  meaning.  It  is  quite 
common  to  make  an  appeal  to  teachers  to  respect 
the  individuality  of  their  pupils ;  but  in  this  sense 
the  word  personality  would  do  as*  well,  and  in  fact 
8  »3 


H4        The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

is,  on  the  whole,  more  frequently  used.  What  we 
must  respect  in  our  pupils  is  not  the  mere  separate 
existence  of  the  young  human  animal,  but  those 
qualities  in  him  that  make  him  what  he  is.  One  is 
tempted,  indeed,  to  regard  personality  as  the  pic- 
turesque aspect  of  individuality.  Teachers  have  to 
admit  that  the  most  commonplace  member  of  their 
classes  has  individuality,  since  he  is  obviously  a 
self-contained  unity  existing  by  and  for  himself. 
But  they  do  not  feel  at  all  tempted  to  speak  of  his 
individuality  in  this  sense  :  it  is  taken  for  granted 
in  the  same  way  as  the  individuality  of  the  desk  at 
which  he  sits.  No  doubt  we  have  to  take  account 
of  the  individual  qualities  of  our  pupil,  however 
commonplace  these  may  be.  He  enjoys  his  banal 
self-containedness  quite  as  much  as  his  brilliant 
fellow  enjoys  his  striking  personality  ;  but  the  two 
belong  to  different  categories  all  the  same. 

Of  practical  importance  to  the  teacher  is  the  fact, 
which  careful  observation  of  the  use  of  the  term 
will  establish,  that  the  term  personality  nearly 
H  always  implies  a  reference  to  the  way  in  which  the 
individual  concerned  reacts  upon  other  individuals. 
A  man  of  strong  personality  is  one  who  has  a 
marked  influence  upon  his  fellows.  Indeed,  the 
amount  of  personality  attributed  to  any  individual 
may  be  not  unfairly  estimated  by  the  degree  of 
influence  he  can  exert  upon  others.  If  a  quantita- 
tive scale  of  personality  is  desired,  this  test  might 
well  be  adopted  to  establish  a  standard. 

The  derivation  of  the  term  personality  perhaps 
gives  a  little  help  in  getting  at  the  root  meaning. 
In  the  old  Greek  and  Roman  theatres  it  was  much 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class       115 

more  easy  to  duplicate  parts  than  on  the  modern 
stage,  where  so  many  characters  are  included  in 
the  cast.  Since  it  was  the  custom  to  have  not 
more  than  three  chief  actors  on  the  stage  at  one 
time,  it  was  comparatively  easy  for  one  actor  to 
play  more  than  one  part.  In  order,  however,  to 
prevent  confusion  in  the  minds  of  the  spectators, 
it  was  necessary  that  at  each  entrance  the  actor 
should  have  some  distinctive  mark  to  indicate  the 
particular  role  he  was  at  the  moment  playing.  A 
mask  was  the  simplest  device  to  remove  all  doubt. 
Since  he  was  wearing  a  mask  at  any  rate,  it  was 
found  desirable  to  turn  it  to  a  second  use  in  order 
to  supply  another  imperative  need.  With  the  huge 
audiences  that  filled  the  ancient  open-air  theatres, 
it  was  exceedingly  difficult  for  even  a  strong  human 
voice  to  reach  all  parts  of  the  amphitheatre.  Accord- 
ingly, the  mouth  of  the  mask  was  so  contrived  as 
to  act  as  a  megaphone.  Which  was  the  primary 
and  more  important  function  of  the  mask,  let  the 
critics  decide.  The  picturesque  derivation  of  the 
Latin  word  for  a  mask,  persona,  is  said  to  be  per 
and  sonare.  This  would  seem  to  show  that  the 
megaphone  aspect  was  the  more  important,  but  for 
the  purposes  of  psychology  the  essential  point  is 
the  character  that  the  actor  was  personating  at  the 
time.  Obviously,  one  of  the  most  direct  ways  of 
estimating  the  importance  of  a  particular  dramatis 
persona  was  the  way  in  which  he  impressed  the 
audience,  thus  bringing  out  the  fundamental  con- 
nection between  personality  and  social  intercourse. 
Another  illustration  of  this  connection  is  to  be 
found  in  the  grammatical  use  of  the  term  person. 


n6      The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

The  first,  second,  and  third  persons,  representing 
respectively  the  speaker,  the  hearer,  and  the  subject 
of  discourse,  give  a  clear  indication  that  personality 
is  closely  related  to  social  intercourse.  The  / 
demands  at  least  a  thou,  even  if  we  could  altogether 
dispense  with  he,  she,  it,  they,  and  them.  The 
interaction  that  goes  on  among  the  personal  pronouns 
is  symbolical  of  the  interaction  that  goes  on  among 
persons  in  their  social  relations.  The  ego  cannot 
exist  by  and  for  itself  alone.  In  order  to  realise 
itself,  there  must  be  some  other  person  or  persons 
upon  whom  it  may  react.  An  ego  implies  an  alter. 
No  doubt  we  can  think  about  and  analyse  the  ego 
by  itself.  We  can  isolate  it  and  reason  about  it. 
But  it  cannot  become  a  living,  organic  entity  unless 
it  has  other  egos  upon  whom  to  act.  This  is  a 
rather  vague  and  abstract  way  of  saying  that  the 
individual  can  realise  himself  only  in  a  society. 
We  must  pass  from  the  purely  individual  psychology 
of  the  old  writers  of  the  school  of  Locke,  Reid, 
Stewart,  and  Hamilton,  to  the  collective  psychology 
of  Bagehot,  Tarde,  Le  Bon,  Macdougall,  and  Trotter. 
Our  first  business  is  to  realise  that  the  individual 
ego  changes  according  to  the  alter  upon  whom  it 
reacts.  In  the  course  of  a  day,  the  ego  has,  indeed, 
many  parts  to  play.  The  boy  of  fourteen  is  quite 
a  different  person  according  as  he  is  dealing  with 
his  brother  of  eighteen,  his  sister  of  ten,  his  brother 
of  twelve,  his  father,  his  mother,  his  schoolmaster. 
It  is  not  that  he  is  playing  a  part  in  the  bad  sense 
of  that  term.  He  may  be  able  to  pass  with  credit 
the  Polonian  test  of  being  to  his  own  self  true  ;  and 
yet  he  plays  Proteus  all  the  while.     Without  losing 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class      117 

his  own  essential  qualities,  he  is  continually  changing 
to  meet  the  needs  of  the  social  environment :  he 
is  but  a  unit  in  the  problem  of  social  psychology. 
Yet  he  is  not  an  absolutely  independent  unit.  His 
position  may  be  compared  with  that  of  the  atom 
in  chemistry,  as  that  science  was  understood  in  the 
pre-radium  day  We  used  to  be  told  that  the 
atom  was  the  ultimate  and  irreducible  unit  of  the 
chemical  elements,  but  that  it  could  not  exist 
entirely  alone.  Combinations  of  atoms  of  different 
elements  made  up  what  we  were  taught  to  call 
molecules,  and  it  gave  the  schoolboy  solid  satis- 
faction to  learn  that  a  molecule  of  water  was  made 
up  of  two  atoms  of  hydrogen  and  one  atom  of 
oxygen,  and  that  the  atoms  were  quite  satisfied 
with  this  arrangement.  He  could  not,  however, 
make  up  his  mind  to  approve  of  the  suggestion  that 
an  atom  of  free  hydrogen  could  not  lead  a  satis- 
factory life  by  itself,  but  must  join  with  some 
other  atom,  even  if  that  other  atom  were  also 
hydrogen.  The  teacher  had  to  drill  into  the 
schoolboy  mind  that  the  essential  point  was  that 
atoms  could  not  exist  in  isolation  :  they  had  to 
seek  other  atoms  in  order  to  form  molecules  :  mole- 
cules were  the  only  stable  forms  in  which  atoms 
could  be  at  peace.  The  student  of  psychology  has 
apparently  to  learn  the  same  lesson.  The  egos 
cannot  exist  by  themselves ;  they  must  form 
groups  corresponding  to  molecules. 

We  have  no  recognised  word  in  psychology  to 
correspond  to  molecule  in  chemistry.  Professor 
J.  M.  Baldwin  has  appropriated  the  Latin  word 
socius,  and  has  given  it  a  very  special  signification 


n8      The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

to  suit  his  private  ends.  But  there  is  nothing  to 
hinder  us  taking  the  term  and  making  it  mean 
what  we  find  more  useful  for  our  purpose.  With 
apologies  to  Professor  Baldwin,  we  shall  regard  the 
socius  as  the  social  molecule,  made  up  in  the  first 
instance  by  a  combination  of  the  ego  and  the  alter. 
It  is  true  that  the  ego  is  continually  changing  its 
alter,  so  that  the  social  molecule  is  in  a  continual 
state  of  flux.  In  the  world  of  selves,  each  ego  is 
continually  changing  its  mate,  but  always  remains 
part  of  a  socius.  This  state  of  continuous  change 
in  no  way  disturbs  the  chemical  metaphor.  The 
state  of  affairs  described  is,  after  all,  only  a 
very  tame,  slow,  and  sober  parallel  to  the  dance 
of  atoms  to  which  imaginative  chemists  have 
accustomed  us. 

Coming  now  to  practical  examples  of  this  social 
chemistry,  we  have  to  consider  in  unfigurative 
language  the  interactions  of  individuals  upon  one 
another  in  a  social  environment.  It  is  a  matter  of 
common  experience  that  in  ordinary  life  people 
behave  differently  according  as  they  have  one  or 
many  people  to  deal  with  at  a  time.  It  is  perhaps 
not  a  scientific,  but  it  certainly  is  a  useful,  classifi- 
cation of  human  beings  into  those  who  are  at  their 
best  d  deux,  and  those  who  do  not  shine  unless  they 
have  a  chance  of  disporting  themselves  at  least 
d  trois.  The  presence  of  a  third  party  often  appears 
to  change  entirely  the  social  reactions  of  an  indi- 
vidual. A  child  who  is  quiet  and  well  behaved 
when  in  the  company  of  a  sympathetic  but  undemon- 
strative uncle,  often  becomes  rude  and  troublesome 
the  moment  a  third  person  appears,  before  whom  he 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class      119 

may  assert  himself.  Playing  to  the  gallery  begins 
very  early  in  human  development,  certainly  before 
the  actor  leaves  his  nurse's  arms. 

The  socius  may  be  accepted  as  the  social  unit,  but 
complexes  are  soon  formed,  and  the  question  rises 
whether  a  new  principle  is  involved  in  the  wider 
grouping  of  the  molecules.  It  is  generally  recognised 
that  human  beings  in  groups  behave  differently  from 
what  they  would  do  as  individuals.  Collective 
psychology  maintains  that  there  is  a  collective  spirit, 
whatever  may  be  the  final  decision  about  the  separate 
semi-independent  existence  of  a  "  group  mind." 
This  attitude  is  to  be  expected  as  the  natural  conse- 
quence of  what  has  been  just  said  about  the  social 
molecules.  But  a  question  now  arises,  How  many 
social  units  are  required  to  produce  this  collective 
feeling  ?  A  mathematician  is  apt  to  answer  bluntly, 
Anything  more  than  one,  and  there  is  some  justifica- 
tion for  the  uncompromising  statement.  But  a 
little  investigation  at  the  lower  levels  will  indicate 
that  the  solution  of  the  problem  is  not  so  simple 
as  all  that.  Those  who  have  made  a  study  of  the 
principles  of  organising  walking  tours  have  seriously 
debated  the  advantages  of  two,  three,  and  four. 
Two  has  many  obvious  advantages  if  proper  provi- 
sion is  made  for  a  period  of  separation  every  day 
of  the  tour.  Three  is  defended  on  the  ground  that 
this  number  provides  for  the  temporary  splitting 
up  into  the  2  -f- 1  combination,  by  which  A  can 
rest  himself  for  a  while  from  B  by  joining  himself 
to  C,  and  the  others  in  the  same  way.  The  trouble 
here  is  the  danger  of  the  2  -f  1  combination  be- 
coming too  pronounced,   leading  to  a  permanent 


120      The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

exclusion  of  one  of  the  three  from  any  real  organic 
connection  with  the  other  two.  Four  is  found  to  be 
a  dangerous  number  from  the  strong  tendency  to 
break  up  into  two  pairs.  The  problem  of  the  proper 
number  of  guests  at  a  dinner-table  goes  on  similar 
lines.  Many  hostesses  have  a  strong  preference  for 
six,  others  prefer  eight.  Something  depends  upon 
the  shape  of  the  table,  but  more  upon  the  nature 
of  the  conversation  desired.  The  table  may  be 
taken  as  the  unit,  and  in  that  case  the  guests  will 
be  expected  to  keep  to  the  same  subject  of  conversa- 
tion, and  to  avoid  splitting  up  into  conversational 
groups.  A  famous  dining  club  in  London  made  it 
a  strict  rule  that  the  conversation  should  thus  remain 
a  unit.  The  implication  of  this  rule  is  that  the  diners 
were  to  be  regarded  as  making  up  a  collective 
psychological  unit. 

For  it  must  be  noted  that  a  mere  gathering  of 
individuals  does  not  necessarily  form  a  psychological 
unit.  At  Charing  Cross  Station  on  a  Bank  Holiday 
there  are  gathered  together  some  thousands  of 
people  ;  but  they  have  all  their  own  individual 
interests.  Each  is  seeking  out  his  own  particular 
ticket  office,  his  own  particular  platform,  his  own 
particular  train,  and  his  own  particular  corner  seat, 
and  pays  no  attention  to  other  people,  beyond  getting 
out  of  their  way.  This  is  a  mere  assemblage  of 
individuals.  If,  however,  something  out  of  the 
common  should  occur,  something  of  general  interest, 
such  as  the  falling  of  a  girder  from  the  roof,  the  mass 
of  people  becomes  inspired  with  a  common  interest, 
perhaps  with  a  common  purpose,  and  we  have  a 
psychological  unit.     Something  new  has  come  into 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class      121 

the  situation.  The  number  of  people  has  not  altered, 
nor  has  the  inherent  nature  of  ,  the  individuals 
intrinsically  changed,  but  the  crowd,  as  a  whole, 
will  now  behave  in  quite  a  different  way  from 
what  it  did  before. 

We  are  not  to  make  the  mistake  that  we  can  get 
at  the  nature  of  the  change  by  a  process  of  arith- 
metic. It  is  not  a  matter  of  getting  the  average  of 
the  individuals  involved.  The  crowd  spirit  is 
something  quite  new,  and  cannot  be  reached  by 
any  process  of  calculation.  To  illustrate,  we  may 
fall  back  upon  a  familiar  distinction  that  most 
teachers  have  occasion  at  some  time  or  other  to 
instil  into  the  minds  of  their  pupils  :  that  between 
a  mechanical  mixture  and  a  chemical  compound. 
We  tell  them  that  if  we  take  a  pile  of  salt,  a  pile  of 
sugar,  a  pile  of  pepper,  and  a  pile  of  sand,  and  mix 
them  all  together  as  thoroughly  as  we  can,  we  have 
a  mechanical  mixture  of  a  dirty  brown  colour. 
But  none  of  the  constituents  is  necessarily  changed, 
and  if  we  had  plenty  of  patience  and  time — or,  failing 
these,  the  loan  of  a  fairy  godmother — we  might 
separate  out  the  materials  into  the  four  original 
heaps  of  salt,  sugar,  pepper,  and  sand — and  nobody 
would  be  a  bit  the  wiser.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we 
take  a  colourless  gas  and  a  silvery  metallic  fluid  and 
put  them  into  chemical  combination,  we  do  not  get  a 
silvery  gas  or  a  colourless  fluid,  but  a  bright  scarlet 
powder,  that  bears  no  resemblance  whatever  to  the 
materials  out  of  which  it  is  compounded.  So  with" 
the  psychological  crowd  :  it  acts  in  a  way  that 
appears  to  have  no  causal  relation  to  the  elements 
pf  which  it  is  made  up.     People  in  the  mass,  when 


122       The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

they  have  been  worked  up  into  a  collective  psycho- 
logical unit,  act  in  a  way  that  would  greatly  surprise 
the  individual  members  of  the  crowd  in  their  normal 
condition.  On  a  Mafeking  night  steady,  responsible 
and  normally  respectable  dull  men  will  jump  upon 
desks  and  throw  their  silk  hats  into  the  air  without 
caring  whether  they  recover  them  or  not,  in  a  way 
that  would  never  occur  to  them  to  do  if  they  were 
alone. 

Though  collective  psychology  is  now  being  studied 
intensively,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  crowd 
or  herd  instinct  is  any  new  discovery.  No  doubt 
the  oldest  primitive  hunters  were  familiar  with  the 
peculiar  activities  of  herds  of  wild  cattle  under 
certain  stimuli.  The  study  of  the  conduct  of  crowds 
was  surely  not  neglected  by  the  Egyptian  priests 
and  the  wise  men  of  other  nations  who  depended  for 
their  power  on  the  knowledge  of  human  activities 
and  weaknesses.  Even  in  the  educational  world 
the  crowd  spirit  is  not  a  discovery  of  yesterday. 
David  Stow,  in  his  training  system,  made  great  use 
of  what  was  then  called  the  Sympathy  of  Numbers. 
The  teachers  of  eighty  years  ago  were  familiar  with 
the  phenomena  of  collective  action,  though  they 
were  far  from  being  able  to  supply  any  explanation 
of  how  they  were  caused.  It  is  something  to  have 
a  grip  of  the  facts  of  the  case,  even  if  we  have 
to  leave,  as  David  Stow  had  to  do,  the  explanation 
to  our  successors. 

In  point  of  fact,  we  have  not  made  any  very  great 
progress  in  this  matter,  even  at  the  present  day ; 
but  we  at  least  realise  that  there  is  a  problem,  and 
that  methods  must  be  sought  to  deal  with  it.    Though 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class       123 

the  credit  for  working  up  the  psychology  of  collective 
action  is  generally  given  to  continental  investigators, 
it  is  pleasant  to  note  that  the  seminal  ideas  came 
from  an  Englishman.  The  monumental  work  of 
Gabriel  Tarde,  Les  Lois  de  V Imitation,  was  preceded 
by  Walter  Bagehot's  Physics  and  Politics,  in  which 
he  attempts  to  apply  to  social  reactions  the  same 
principles  as  are  usually  applied  to  physics.  Natur- 
ally, he  was  not  very  successful  on  the  purely  mathe- 
matical side,  but  he  did  admirably  suggestive  work 
that  opened  out  new  lines  of  investigation  that 
have  led  to  very  important  developments.  His 
position  was  a  little  like  that  of  Herbart  in  pure 
psychology.  This  German  psychologist  maintained 
that  the  mental  processes  are  carried  on  in  such  a 
regular  and  systematic  way  that  the  interaction 
of  ideas,  under  proper  conditions  of  investigation, 
should  be  as  easily  worked  out  as  a  rule-of-three 
problem.  We  have  not  yet  reached  the  stage 
threatened  by  Titchener,  when  in  the  future  a  book 
of  psychology  will  be  as  full  of  formulae  as  a  book  of 
physics  is  at  present.  All  the  same,  we  have  reached 
a  few  general  principles  that  may  be  usefully  applied 
to  the  advancement  of  our  knowledge  of  crowd 
action. 

As  suggested  by  the  title  of  Monsieur  G.  Tarde's 
book,  the  force  known  as  imitation  counts  for  a 
great  deal  in  all  collective  reactions  among  animals 
and  human  beings.  Imitation  naturally  works 
in  two  ways — wittingly  and  unwittingly.  The  way 
in  which  we  learn  to  speak  is  largely  imitative. 
The  child  does  not  at  first  wittingly  imitate,  and 
even  when  witting  imitation  comes,  the  child  does 


124      The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

not  know  how  he  imitates.  If  a  man  imitates  a 
peculiar  sound  that  he  hears,  he  does  not  in  the  least 
know  how  he  produces  the  effect.  If  the  matter  is 
so  obscure  even  at  the  witting  or  deliberate  stage, 
how  mysterious  must  it  be  at  the  unwitting  or 
merely  organic  stage  ! 

Further,  we  are  not  to  limit  imitation  to  the  phy- 
sical stage.  We  imitate  states  of  mind  as  well  as 
movements  of  the  body.  What  is  vaguely  called 
sympathy  is  really  the  mental  or  spiritual  side  of 
imitation.  The  derivation  of  the  word  itself  suggests 
this.  A  feeling  along  with,  a  putting  of  ourselves 
in  the  place  of  another,  is  clearly  a  case  of  imitation, 
usually  in  the  unwitting  form.  We  do  not  ordin- 
arily say  to  ourselves  :  Go  to,  let  us  put  ourselves 
in  the  same  attitude  of  spirit  as  this  person.  We 
should  be%misled  by  the  restricted  meaning  of  the 
word  in  our  English  language.  It  must  not  be 
confined  to  fellow-feeling  in  suffering.  It  is  equally 
applicable  to  joy.  The  German  language  has  here 
an  advantage  over  ours.  It  has  three  words  where 
we  are  content  with  one.  Mitgefuhl  is  the  general 
term  meaning  feeling  along  with  another ;  Mitleid 
means  the  sharing  of  grief  ;  while  Mitfreude  provides 
for  the  case  of  sharing  joy.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
sympathy,  in  its  various  forms,  is  contagious  or 
infectious — it  is  a  little  difficult  to.  determine  which 
is  the  proper  term  here.  There  are,  no  doubt,  people 
who  are  relatively  unsympathetic,  just  as  there  are 
people  who  are  immune  to  certain  physical  affections. 
But  the  great  mass  of  humanity  is  as  open  to  sugges- 
tion in  relation  to  sympathy  as  they  are  in  relation 
to  the  more  physical  aspects  of  imitation.     Indeed, 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class      125 

it  is  doubtful  whether  we  are  able  to  separate  quite 
clearly  the  physical  from  the  spiritual  in  these 
matters.  All  that  lies  behind  the  Lange- James- 
Sutherland  theory  may  be  called  in  evidence  in 
support  of  the  probability  that  the  demonstrably 
infectious  physical  imitation  is  essentially  the  same 
as  the  more  spiritual  sympathy. 

In  any  case,  mob  action,  with  its  imitative  and 
sympathetic  bases,  exemplifies  a  falling  back  upon 
the  primitive  elements  in  man.  An  excited  crowd 
is  really  a  collective  embodiment  of  our  primitive 
ancestors.  All  the  refinements  of  modern  civilisa- 
tion seem  to  fall  away  from  the  individuals  who  form 
what  is  usually  called  a  mob,  and  the  same  is  true, 
in  varying  degrees,  of  whatever  collective  units 
we  study.  The  titans  within  us  seem  to  make 
common  cause  and  to  dominate  the  situation.  The 
mystery  of  the  unconscious  in  the  individual  becomes 
intensified  in  the  case  of  the  collective  unit.  For 
in  the  individual  case  there  is  a  unifying  force  in  the 
consciousness,  though  that  force  is  in  abeyance 
when  the  unconscious  takes  things  into  its  own  hands. 
But  in  the  collective  unit  there  has  never  been  a 
unifying  force,  or,  at  any  rate,  the  existence  of  such 
a  unifying  force  has  not  been  demonstrated.  As  the 
individual  has  developed  out  of  the  stage  at  which 
everything  was  carried  on  in  the  realm  of  the  un- 
conscious, so  the  collective  unit  may  be  still  in  the 
purely  unconscious  stage,  waiting  for  the  evolution 
of  a  collective  consciousness  that  may  appear  at  a 
later  stage  of  social  development. 

In  the  meantime  we  must  depend  upon  a  more  or 
less  superficial  examination  of  external  symptoms 


126      The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

in  our  analysis  of  the  interaction  among  individuals 
that  gives  rise  to  collective  activity.  If  it  be  true 
that  the  mark  of  crowd  activity  is  a  reversion  towards 
the  primitive,  it  would  seem  that  it  should  be  much 
more  difficult  to  rouse  the  crowd  spirit  in  a  group  of 
highly  cultured  people  than  in  one  made  up  of  less 
sophisticated  folk ;  and  this  appears  to  be  true  so 
far  as  the  beginnings  of  collective  action  are  con- 
cerned, though  when  once  the  crowd  spirit  has  been 
aroused  it  may  go  to  any  length  even  among  the 
most  cultured  people.  There  seems  to  be  enough 
truth  in  Kipling's  "  The  colonel's  lady  and  Judith 
O' Grady  are  sisters  under  the  skin,"  to  justify  this 
view  of  crowd  action,  as,  at  any  rate,  a  working 
hypothesis. 

What,  then,  is  the  process  by  which  the  crowd 
works  itself  up  to  the  proper  pitch  to  throw  off 
restraints  and  revert  to  the  primitive  ?  Two  forces 
appear  to  be  at  work — fusion  and  arrest.  All  the 
common  elements  in  the  individuals  that  make  up  a 
crowd  tend  to  fuse  together  and  thus  to  acquire 
strength.  On  the  other  hand,  qualities  that  are 
peculiar  to  individuals,  or  are  shared  by  com- 
paratively small  groups  of  individuals,  are  not  only 
swamped  by  the  big  imperious  combination  of 
common  elements,  but  actually  tend  to  counteract 
each  other's  activities  and  thus  to  produce  arrest. 
The  common  qualities  not  only  excel  in  native 
power,  but  they  are  enormously  greater  in  number. 
If  a  plain  man  of  some  intelligence  cares  to  take  two 
sheets  of  paper  and  to  write  out  on  one  of  them  the 
qualities  in  which  he  resembles  William  Shakespeare, 
and  on  another  the  qualities  in  which  he  differs  from 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class      127 

him,  the  result  will  be  an  enormous  preponderance 
of  points  of  resemblance.  The  number  of  qualities 
in  which  the  plain  man  resembles  Shakespeare  is 
almost  infinitely  greater  than  the  number  of  qualities 
in  which  he  differs.  It  is  true  that  the  differentiating 
points  are  rather  important ;  but,  after  all,  quanti- 
tatively there  you  are.  Accordingly,  in  a  crowd 
the  number  of  differences  is  but  small  compared 
with  the  compact  mass  of  agreements. 

It  may  be  said  that  all  this  applies  only  to  the 
grosser  elements,  and  that  when  it  comes  to  be  a 
matter  of  intelligence  the  laws  of  fusion  and  arrest 
do  not  apply.  To  illustrate  this  point,  the  jury  has 
been  taken  as  a  typical  case.  In  his  Psychologie  des 
Foules  M.  Gustave  le  Bon  tells  us  that  in  France  at 
various  periods,  notably  before  1848,  the  administra- 
tion made  a  point  of  selecting  for  jury  service 
members  of  the  educated  classes — schoolmasters, 
civil  servants,  men  of  letters — but  to-day  they  are 
content  with  small  shopkeepers,  the  heads  of  small 
businesses,  general  employees,  since  "  statistics 
prove  that  the  decisions  of  the  two  groups  have 
been  identical/'  One  of  the  most  distinguished 
advocates  at  the  Paris  cour  d' assises,  M.  Lachaud, 
began  by  rejecting,  when  he  had  a  weak  case,  from 
the  proposed  jurymen  all  "  the  intelligent  indi- 
viduals," but  experience  afterwards  taught  him  the 
utter  futility  of  this  process  of  rejection,  since  the 
verdicts  remained  the  same,  whether  he  made  his 
rejections  or  just  took  the  jurymen  as  they  came. 

But  this  illustration  is  not  quite  to  the  point, 
for  a  jury's  duty  does  not  depend  upon  the  exercise 
of  a  specially  fine  intellect,  but  rather  upon  the 


128      The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

normal  use  of  the  universal  of  thought.  Locke 
believed  that  no  two  honest  men  could  come  to 
different  conclusions  if  the  same  matter  were  put 
before  them.  Those  whose  experience  shows  them 
the  daily  spectacle  of  political  and  other  opponents 
taking  diametrically  different  decisions  from  the 
same  presented  material,  may  smile  at  this  as  a 
temporary  falling  from  grace  of  an  otherwise 
eminently  sensible  Englishman.  But  Locke  lays 
down  certain  conditions  without  which  his  generalisa- 
tion will  not  hold.  These  are  :  (i)  All  the  conditions 
of  the  case  must  be  known  to  both.  This  naturally 
does  not  demand  that  each  of  the  men  must  know 
all  the  facts  with  their  implications.  This  would 
involve  a  knowledge  of  the  whole  universe.  It  is 
enough  if  both  of  the  men  know  exactly  the  same 
things,  (ii)  They  must  be  free  from  prejudice, 
(iii)  They  must  give  their  mind  to  the  subject. 
Most  fair-minded  men  will  agree  that  Locke  is  right 
in  his  contention,  but  will  add  that  his  three  condi- 
tions can  never  be  perfectly  fulfilled.  Yet  in  a  well- 
conducted  law  court  we  approximate  to  Locke's 
conditions.  It  is  the  business  of  the  judge  to  see 
that  all  the  terms  are  properly  understood.  The 
prosecutor  and  the  advocate  for  the  defence  have 
the  duty  of  presenting  all  the  facts.  The  jury  have 
been  specifically  selected  from  those  who  have  no 
personal  bias  in  the  case.  The  judge  does  his  best 
to  keep  them  up  to  a  fair  standard  of  concentration 
on  the  subject  in  hand.  But,  after  all,  the  decision 
the  jury  are  called  upon  to  make  is  merely  what  is 
technically  known  in  logic  as  a  judgment — that  is, 
the  decision  whether  one  term  agrees  or  does  not 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class      129 

agree  with  another.  In  the  logical  process  of  judg- 
ment, the  most  brilliant  intellect  and  the  best  stored 
mind  has  no  advantage  over  the  mind  of  any  plain 
man  who  can  claim  the  modest  honour  of  being 
compos  mentis.  It  is  when  the  process  of  giving  a 
verdict  has  been  reduced  to  this  lowest  common 
denominator  of  thought  that  collective  psychology 
ceases  to  operate.  No  doubt  in  real  life  verdicts 
are  not  always  obtained  on  this  highly  technical 
plane.  Human  nature  asserts  itself  in  the  jury-box 
as  elsewhere.  But  it  is  useful  for  teachers  to  con- 
sider this  extreme  case  and  learn  from  it. 

What  we  are  accustomed  to  call  a  class  is  obviously 
a  collective  unit,  a  sort  of  crowd.  Among  the 
various  kinds  of  crowds  included  in  the  psycholo- 
gists' classification,  the  class  ranks  among  the 
homogeneous  but  not  anonymous  variety.  It  is, 
indeed,  one  of  the  best  examples  of  homogeneity. 
The  pupils  are  of  approximately  the  same  age, 
belong  to  the  same  grade  of  society,  have  the  same 
traditions,  the  same  religion,  the  same  attitude 
towards  sport,  and  in  particular  have  pretty  much 
the  same  mental  content  so  far  as  the  class  work  is 
concerned,  for  their  place  in  that  particular  class 
has  been  selected  for  them  because  of  their  attain- 
ments in  the  subject  being  taught.  As  to  the  non- 
anonymity,  this  distinction  is  introduced  to  mark 
off  the  class  from  a  crowd  where  the  individuals  are 
not  in  any  way  identified.  So  long  as  a  class  is 
being  taught  as  a  class,  there  is  no  need  to  refer  to 
the  individuality  of  any  special  member.  But  the 
very  fact  that  every  pupil  knows  that  he  is  personally 
known  to  the  master  and  to  his  fellows,  makes  the 
9 


130       The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

grouping  different  from  that  assembled  to  enjoy, 
say,  a  kinematograph  entertainment.  Such  an 
audience  is  sometimes  fairly  homogeneous,  but  its 
general  mode  of  action  is  quite  different  from  that 
of  a  non-anonymous  class. 

We  have  been  taking  it  for  granted  that  the  class 
is  a  psychological  unit,  but  it  does  not  follow  that 
it  is  a  psychological  unit  all  the  time.  So  long  as 
the  class  is  working  as  a  whole,  as,  for  example,  in 
listening  to  an  exposition  by  the  teacher,  or  following 
a  demonstration  on  the  blackboard,  it  forms  a 
psychological  unit,  even  though  some  of  the  pupils 
may  not  be  really  attending.  But  when  the  teacher 
sets  the  pupils  to  work  out  a  series  of  exercises,  or 
to  prepare  some  memory  work,  the  class  ceases  to 
be  a  psychological  unit,  and  becomes  a  mere  group 
of  persons  each  attending  to  his  own  business.  This 
integration  and  disintegration  is  going  on  all  day 
long,  the  teacher  being  usually  quite  aware  of  the 
alternation.  But  sometimes  disintegration  occurs 
without  the  teacher  willing  it :  sometimes,  indeed, 
without  his  being  conscious  of  it.  In  its  more 
virulent  forms,  this  cannot  take  place,  except  in  the 
case  of  a  thoroughly  bad  disciplinarian.  But  a 
modified  form  of  disintegration  may  take  place 
against  the  teacher's  will,  and  without  his  being 
fully  aware  of  the  change.  Most  teachers  are  very 
sensitive  to  such  a  change.  Lecturers  and  preachers 
of  good  quality  know  at  once  when  they  have  "  lost 
grip  of  their  audience,"  and  most  of  them  have 
acquired,  from  experience,  skill  in  recapturing  the 
lost  collective  spirit.  Often  the  disintegration  arises 
from  wandering  attention  on  the  part  of  the  teacher 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class      131 


himself,  and  the  class  can  be  pulled  together  by  a 
resumption  of  the  more  vigorous  style  that  marks 
the  earnest  teacher.  Occasionally,  the  falling  off 
results  from  physical  conditions  which  the  teacher 
has  sometimes  the  power  of  modifying,  and  some- 
times not.  Quite  commonly,  the  cause  is  boredom 
as  opposed  to  fatigue.  This,  again,  is  not  difficult 
to  deal  with  by  a,  capable  teacher — the  introduction 
of  an  interesting  illustration,  or  a  temporary  change 
of  subject,  is  usually  sufficient  to  meet  the  case. 
The  essential  point  for  the  teacher  is  to  realise  that 
an  alternation  between  integration  and  disintegra- 
tion is  essential  to  the  wholesome  working  of  the 
class  as  a  psychological  unit. 

A  disturbing  influence  in  the  manipulation  of  a 
class  as  a  psychological  unit  is  found  in  the  class- 
leader.  Writers  on  the  subject  illustrate  this 
influence  by  referring  to  the  leaders  of  the  herd 
among  animals.  The  existence  of  such  leaders 
cannot  be  denied.  Even  the  plain  man  cannot 
observe  a  flock  of  sheep  or  a  herd  of  cattle  without 
seeing  the  herd-leader  at  his  work.  Physical 
strength,  a  fine  figure,  and  the  resulting  power  of 
taking  suitable  action  may  explain  the  status  of  a 
herd- leader,  but  in  a  class  there  is  something  more 
subtle.  Without  doubt,  physical  strength  and 
beauty  have  their  value  in  establishing  leadership 
in  a  class.  But  there  are  other  and  less  patent 
qualities.  No  real  explanation  is  supplied  by 
speaking  of  prestige,  which,  after  all,  is  merely  a 
word  to  indicate  that  the  person  in  question  has 
established  himself  in  a  position  of  prominence. 
Note  that  prominence  is  exactly  the  word  wanted 


132      The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

here.  It  does  not  involve  anything  particularly 
noble,  but  merely  something  that  distinguishes  an 
individual  from  the  rest  of  the  herd.  Unlike  most 
other  words,  this  term  prestige  appears  to  have  taken 
a  turn  upwards  instead  of  downwards.  It  originally 
was  related  to  conjuring  and  other  striking  ways  of 
producing  an  effect  upon  onlookers,  but  in  the  way 
words  have,  this  particular  mode  of  attracting 
attention  became  associated  with  other  and,  in  this 
case,  more  dignified  ways,  with  the  result  that 
prestige  has  now  acquired  a  more  respectable 
connotation,  though  in  some  directions  it  is  still 
used  with  a  shade  of  doubtful  estimation. 

In  any  case,  the  leaders  of  a  class  must  possess 
prestige  in  some  form  or  other.  Personal  qualities 
are  of  the  first  importance,  particularly  in  social 
connections.  But  there  are  some  types  of  per- 
sonality that  prefer  to  act  from  the  background 
and  through  other  persons.  Men  fall,  in  fact,  into 
two  classes  with  regard  to  the  possession  and  the 
exercise  of  power.  Much  the  bigger  class  is  made 
up  of  those  who  desire  to  have  both  power  and 
the  appearance  of  power,  but  among  these  are 
included  those  who  are  content  if  they  have  the 
appearance  of  power  to  a  sufficient  degree  to  impress 
people  in  general.  ^The  essential  characteristic  of 
the  group  is  the  desire  to  have  the  appearance  of 
power,  whatever  may  happen  to  the  reality.  The 
smaller  group  is  made  up  of  those  who  are  content 
to  have  the  real  power,  and  do  not  trouble  them- 
selves about  who  has  the  appearance  of  exercising 
it.  People  like  Francis  Place,  working  for  the 
Reform  Bill  in  his  tailor's  shop  at  Charing  Cross, 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class       133 

belong  to  this  group,  and  in  many  school  classes 
there  will  be  found  to  be  two  leaders,  one  the 
ostensible  leader,  belonging  to  the  first  group,  the 
other  the  real  leader,  belonging  to  the  second. 
Very  often  the  first  leader  is  of  motor  temperament, 
an  extrovert,  while  the  second  is  a  sensory,  an 
introvert. 

It  is,  of  course,  obvious  that  the  teacher  who 
wishes  to  control  hfa  |  class  in  the  most  efficient 
way  must  take  account  of  class-leaders,  and  use 
them  wisely  for  the  good  of  the  class  as  a  whole. 
His  own  position  is  naturally  a  little  ambiguous. 
In  a  certain  sense,  he  is  the  ultimate  leader  of  the 
class  himself.  But  there  is  a  difference  between 
his  leadership  and  that  exercised  by  members  of 
the  class.  A  class-leader  proper  is  not  only  in  the 
class,  but  of  the  class.  He  must  form  a  part  of  it, 
must  enter  into  its  collective  feeling,  and  respond 
himself  to  the  stimuli  that  move  his  fellows.  No 
doubt  in  actual  experience  it  is  sometimes  found 
that  class-leaders  separate  themselves  from  this 
oneship  with  their  fellows,  and  become  more  or  less 
external  class-leaders.  In  such  cases,  they  are 
really  usurping  the  teacher's  place.  A  mob  leader 
who  stands  sufficiently  outside  of  the  mob  to  use 
that  mob  for  his  own  ends,  is  no  longer  the  natural 
leader  of  that  mob,  but  an  outside  personality  who 
makes  use  of  the  mob  as  an  instrument.  The  dis- 
tinction is  quite  a  clear  one  and  has  practical 
importance.  But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
there  is  anything  radically  wrong  with  a  member 
of  a  class  taking  up  the  position  of  an  external  force. 
The  only  important  point  is  that  we  must  realise 


134       The  Psychology  of  the  Class 

the  nature  of  this  attitude  so  as  to  meet  the  new 
situation  that  it  creates.  A  member  of  the  class 
who  separates  himself  from  his  fellows  must  be 
dealt  with  by  the  teacher  on  the  plane  of  external 
equality,  though  absolute  equality  may  be  reason- 
ably denied.  For  example,  the  official  position 
given  to  prefects  marks  them  off  from  what  may  be 
called  the  natural  leaders  of  the  class.  They  have 
a  recognised  constitutional  authority  which  naturally 
increases  the  prestige  they  originally  enjoyed  in 
some  measure,  else  they  would  not  have  been 
chosen  as  prefects. 

The  manipulation  of  natural  class-leaders  is 
different  from  that  of  those  officially  recognised.  In 
the  second  case,  the  relation  is  openly  recognised  : 
the  prefect  is  frankly  acknowledged  to  be  a  sort  of 
representative  of  authority.  He  is  on  the  side  of 
law  and  order,  and  is  to  be  relied  upon  in  a  case  of 
difference  of  opinion  between  the  master  and  the 
class  to  take  the  side  of  the  master  in  the  last  resort, 
though,  of  course,  he  has  a  loyalty  to  his  class- 
mates, and  will  be  expected  to  uphold  their  point 
of  view  unless  in  so  far  as  his  seniors  can  show  him 
good  reason  against  it.  This  was  the  kind  of 
leadership  that  the  young  Richard  II  offered  to  the 
mob  when  their  natural  leader,  Wat  Tyler,  was 
struck  down,  but  he  did  not  realise  that,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  he  could  not  hope  to  represent 
both  parties  in  the  social  strife.  In  school  there 
is  the  fundamental  proviso  that  the  masters  exist 
primarily  and  indeed  absolutely  for  nothing  but 
the  good  of  the  pupils.  No  doubt  the  ordinary 
schoolboy  feels  pretty   much  towards  his  masters 


The  Psychology  of  the  Class      135 

as  the  mob  did  towards  the  king.  It  is  well,  there- 
fore, to  encourage  the  custom  of  allowing  forms  to 
elect  their  own  prefects,  even  though  it  may  be 
necessary  to  reserve  for  the  masters  the  right  of 
veto  in  case  of  any  really  dangerous  election. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE    KNELL   OF   CLASS-TEACHING 

ONE  of  the  most  notable  features  of  present-day 
education    is    the    reaction    against    class- 
teaching.    The  class  has,  in  the  past,  been  largely 
taken  for  granted,  and  its  very  existence  tended  to 
guide  teaching  method  into  certain  definite  lines. 
Many   modern   teachers  are  dissatisfied  with   the 
limitations  thus  imposed  on  their  freedom,  and  are 
in  revolt  against  the  whole  system.    The  wish  being 
father  to  the  thought,  there  is  a  rumour  that  the 
knell  of  class- teaching  has  been  rung.    The  question, 
Who  tolled  the  bell  ?    produces  various  answers. 
There  is  quite  a  demand  for  the  honour,  but,  on  the 
whole,  the  evidence  seems  to  point  to  Dr.  Montes- 
sori.     Whoever  is  entitled  to  the  honour  must  bear 
the  reproach  of  a  somewhat  unseemly  haste.     It 
cannot   be   denied   that   certain   preparations   are 
amaking  for  the  obsequies  ;  but  though  the  patient 
is  in  a  bad  way,  the  corpse  is  hardly  yet  available 
for    sextonly    treatment.     Indeed,    the    death,    if 
inevitable,  is  likely  to  be  a  lingering  one.     We  have 
plenty  of  time  to  arrange  about  our  mourning. 

To  begin  with,  we  must  clearly  distinguish  between 
the  class  and  class-teaching.  We  see  no  danger  of 
the   class   itself   disappearing.     It   is    a    vigorous 

136 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching       137 

institution,  enjoying  robust  health  :  it  has  solid 
foundations  in  economic  principles.  The  world 
cannot  afford  to  dispense  with  it.  The  education 
of  the  individual  is,  no  doubt,  the  ultimate  purpose 
of  any  national  system,  but  no  state  can  afford  to 
train  its  citizens  on  the  plan  of  private  tuition. 
This  would  mean  a  life  for  a  life :  each  generation 
would  have  to  sacrifice  most  of  its  activity  to  the 
preparation  of  the  next.  The  whole  nation  would 
have  to  become  private  tutors — which  is  absurd. 
In  the  past,  princes  and  wealthy  people  could 
afford  to  buy  the  whole  time  of  certain  capable 
persons  for  the  purpose  of  educating  sons  and 
daughters.  For  a  little  while  longer,  this  plan  may 
still  be  tolerated,  but  the  great  mass  of  society 
cannot  afford  anything  but  collective  instruction 
and  training,  even  if  it  could  be  demonstrated  that 
class-work  is,  in  all  ways,  inferior  to  individual 
teaching,  which  has  certainly  not  yet  been  done. 
In  national  education  the  class  is  an  inevitable 
institution.  It  has  its  roots  deep  in  the  past,  and 
there  is  no  sign  that  economic  conditions  are  likely 
to  warrant  its  disappearance  in  the  future.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  it  will,  for  all  time,  fulfil  just 
its  present  function.  Those  who  are  waiting  in 
vain  for  a  funeral  may  perhaps  console  themselves 
with  a  transformation. 

For  we  may  regard  the  class  from  two  different 
standpoints.  It  may  be  treated  as  a  unit  of  teaching, 
or  as  a  unit  of  organisation.  It  is  as  a  teaching-unit 
that  it  is  most  usually  regarded,  and  in  this  direction 
lies  its  danger.  It  is  in  this  aspect  that  it  is  so 
generally  challenged  to-day.     As  an  organisation- 


138       The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

unit  it  is  much  more  securely  entrenched.  Even 
the  Montessorians  recognise  the  necessity  for  some 
unit  of  organisation,  and  we  may  as  well  call  that 
unit  a  class  as  speak  of  it  by  any  other  name.  The 
question  was  once  put  to  Dr.  Montessori :  How  many 
pupils  can  a  Montessorian  teach  ?  I  cannot  remem- 
ber the  exact  words  of  the  answer  as  given  in  the 
typewritten  report  that  it  was  my  privilege  to  read, 
but  the  substance  is  clear  in  my  mind.  To  begin 
with,  there  was  the  inevitable  correction  of  the 
terms  in  which  the  question  was  put.  The  Mon- 
tessorians do  not  teach,  they  merely  guide.  We 
must  not  speak  of  Montessorian  teachers,  but  of 
Montessorian  directresses.  Answering,  however, 
the  spirit  of  the  question  if  not  quite  the  letter,  Dr. 
Montessori  let  it  be  understood  that,  with  the  aid 
of  a  young  attendant  to  look  after  the  mere  bodily 
needs  of  the  children,  a  Montessorian  directress 
might  be  reasonably  held  responsible  for  the 
activities  of  forty- five  children.  I  was  surprised 
at  the  time  at  the  large  number,  for  I  had  sup- 
posed that  the  Montessorians  would  demand  the 
small  classes  that  the  kindergartners  regard  as 
essential ;  and  I  was  rebuked  by  a  distinguished 
Montessorian  for  being  surprised.  I  ought  to  have 
realised,  I  was  told,  that  there  are  no  such  things  as 
classes  in  the  Montessorian  system  :  that  the  founder 
had  abolished  them  :  that  the  class  was  no  more. 

Naturally,  I  am  totally  unrepentant.  How  can 
I  be  otherwise,  when  I  find  myself  surrounded  every 
day  with  classes  that  have  all  the  symptoms  of 
almost  excessive  vitality  ?  Yet  my  critic  had  right 
on  her  side  to*' this  extent,  that,  so  far  as  the  Mon- 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching       139 

tessorians  are  concerned,  the  class  as  a  teaching-unit 
is  dead,  and  that  the  disease  that  brought  about  its 
death  is  spreading  into  all  manner  of  other  classes 
throughout  our  country.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
protest  of  the  Montessorians  against  the  class  as  a 
teaching- unit  is  an  admission  of  the  need  for  it  as 
a  unit  of  organisation.  It  is  only  when  it  is  regarded 
as  a  teaching-unit  that  the  Montessorians  become 
definitely  hostile.  They  hold  that  the  individual 
child  is  the  unit,  though  it  may  be  desirable  for 
economic,  and  perhaps  even  for  other,  reasons,  to 
group  the  children  in  what  may  be  called  a  class. 
The  individuality  of  the  children  must  be  allowed 
free  play,  and  this  cannot  be  done  if  they  are  taught 
as  that  collective  unit  that  is  commonly  indicated 
by  the  term  class.     For,  in  Samuel  Butler's  words  : 

"...  when  they're  cast  into  a  lump, 
Their  talents  equally  must  jump." 

Now,  practical  experience  shows  teachers  that  it 
is  impossible  to  attain  this  equal  jumping,  so  there 
always  has  been  a  trend  towards  conditions  that  will 
make  it  possible  for  the  pupils  to  be  treated  as 
individuals  rather  than  as  mere  elements  in  a 
collective  unit.  Sometimes  a  fairly  satisfactory 
solution  of  the  difficulty  was  forced  upon  teachers 
by  what  appeared  to  be  adverse  circumstances. 
This  occurred,  for  example,  in  some  of  the  old 
Scottish  parish  schools  where  there  was  but  one 
schoolmaster  to  a  whole  roomful  of  children,  and 
each  came  up  in  his  turn  to  have  his  work  examined 
and  a  new  lesson  set.  Regarded  by  many  as  a 
mere  makeshift  to  do  the  best  under  intolerably  bad 


140       The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 


conditions,  the  plan  was  found  to  work  exceedingly 
well.  The  school  was  merely  a  unit  of  organisation, 
and  the  teaching  was  individual. 

But  the  value  of  individual  instruction  under 
class  organisation  was  not  left  to  be  discovered  by 
sheer  force  of  circumstances.  Practical  teachers 
and  intelligent  educationists  reached  the  conclusion 
that  the  individual  must  become  the  real  unit  of 
teaching,  though,  for  economic  reasons,  the  class 
could  not  be  comfortably  abolished.  Thus,  under 
the  title  of  The  Laboratory  Method,  E.  J.  Swift,  in 
his  The  Mind  in  the  Making  (1908),  describes  a 
scheme  that  brings  out  all  the  essentials  of  what 
we  shall  consider  later  under  the  name  of  the  Dalton 
Plan.  Further,  my  colleague  in  the  University  of 
London,  Professor  T.  P.  Nunn,  has  made  it  a  funda- 
mental part  of  his  philosophy  of  education  that  the 
individual  is  the  basis  of  everything.  The  theoretical 
aspects  are  fully  developed  in  his  Education :  its 
Data  and  First  Principles,  and  the  practical  applica- 
tions were  made  in  public  lectures  delivered  by 
Professor  Nunn  very  early  in  the  present  century 
which  embody  all  the  essentials  of  the  present- 
day  plans. 

But  the  most  common  way  of  trying  to  combine 
the  individual  method  with  the  collective  has  been 
to  secure  very  small  classes,  so  that  the  teacher 
may  have  time  to  deal  with  each  pupil  as  a  separate 
person,  which  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that 
the  teachers  obviously  wanted  to  treat  the  class  as, 
in  reality,  a  unit  of  organisation  rather  than  of 
teaching. 

This  consideration  of  the  number  of  pupils  that 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching       141 

may  be  effectively  dealt  with  in  a  class  naturally 
raises  the  fundamental  question  of  the  intrinsic 
value  of  class- teaching  as  such.  Both  the  Montes- 
sorians  who  reject  the  collective  unit  of  teaching 
altogether,  and  the  teachers  who  try  to  deal  with 
the  class  as  an  organisation-unit,  while  ostensibly 
working  with  it  as  a  teaching-unit,  really  beg  the 
question  of  the  value  of  collective  teaching.  They 
take  it  for  granted  that  collective  teaching  is  bad  as 
such.  But  under  proper  conditions  collective  teach- 
ing has  not  only  no  evil  effects,  but  certain  definite 
advantages.  For  some  subjects  a  fairly  large  class, 
so  far  from  being  a  definite  disadvantage,  is  a  clear 
gain.  Wherever  subj  ects  demand  inspirational  treat- 
ment, there  is  no  special  benefit  in  limiting  the 
class  to,  say,  twenty-five.  In  literature,  in  religious 
knowledge,  in  art  appreciation  and  music  apprecia- 
tion, in  certain  parts  of  history  and  geography,  a 
large  class  has  some  advantages  over  a  small  one. 
No  one  will  accuse  Dr.  F.  H.  Hay  ward  of  any  desire 
to  cut  down  the  staffs  of  our  schools,  and  yet  we 
find  him  actually  advocating  large  classes  for  sub- 
jects where  emotional  elements  have  an  important 
place.  To  be  sure,  he  dislikes  the  word  class  as 
used  in  this  connection,  and  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  term  usually  carries  with  it  a  connotation 
not  quite  appropriate  to  the  kind  of  work  that  he 
has  in  view  in  his  "  appreciation  lessons,"  and  more 
particularly  in  his  "  celebrations.''  He  has  in  view 
rather  an  audience  than  what  is  technically  called  a 
class,  but  this  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  his 
audience  is  a  teaching-unit  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
have  used  that  term. 


142       The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

This  recognition  of  a  large  unit  for  inspirational 
purposes  does  not  come  as  something  new  even  in 
ordinary  elementary  schools.  Eighty  years  ago,  in 
his  school  in  the  Cowcaddens  at  Glasgow,  David 
Stow  exploited  his  doctrine  of  the  "  sympathy  of 
numbers  "  by  establishing  a  steady  series  of  what 
were  called  "gallery  lessons "  every  day.  After 
the  fashion  of  schools  of  that  time  there  was  at  the 
end  of  the  big  room  a  series  of  benches  rising  tier 
upon  tier  behind  each  other  and  technically  known 
as  "  the  gallery."  It  contained  room  enough  for 
three  or  four  classes  to  be  massed  together  for  a 
lesson  of  a  more  general  character  than  was  given 
to  the  separate  classes.  The  subjects  were  not 
limited  to  religion  or  morals,  but  were  always  of 
strong  human  interest,  and  were  given  by  teachers 
of  very  special  powers.  The  results  were  in  every 
way  satisfactory,  except  perhaps  for  the  gallery 
teachers,  who  were  found  not  to  last  quite  so  long 
as  could  have  been  wished.  Their  work  was  speci- 
ally exhausting.  During  every  moment  of  their 
inspirational  work,  virtue  was  going  out  of  them. 
This  does  not,  of  course,  reduce  the  value  of  the 
system,  though  it  may  demand  a  strict  rationing 
of  the  amount  of  such  work  to  be  demanded  from 
any  individual  teacher. 

It  is  clear  from  what  has  gone  before  that  there  is 
real  danger  of  confusion  resulting  from  the  different 
senses  in  which  the  term  class  may  be  used.  Not 
only  may  it  mean  either  a  teaching-unit  or  an 
organisation-unit,  but  it  may  mean  a  group  that  is 
being  taught  hard  facts,  or  one  that  meets  to  be 
stimulated  by  contact  with  an  impressive  personality. 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching       143 


A  good  practical  distinction  may  be  drawn  between 
those  classes  that  must  be  small  and  those  that  may 
be  expanded  with  advantage.  Whatever  classes 
are  engaged  in  preparing  for  examinations  must  rank 
in  the  first  group.  Such  classes  nearly  always 
demand  a  good  deal  of  written  or  practical  work 
that  requires  to  be  attended  to  by  the  teacher, 
and  it  is  obvious  that  his  range  is  limited.  The 
amount  of  necessary  "  corrections "  forms  an 
excellent  gauge  of  the  workable  size  of  a  class. 

In  actual  practice,  there  is  a  rough-and-ready 
standard  recognised  by  the  profession  :  twenty-five 
pupils  for  the  secondary  school  and  forty  for  the 
elementary  are  looked  upon  as  not  very  far  from 
the  ideal  numbers.  It  is  true  that  there  are  those 
who  would  reverse  the  numbers,  and  claim  that  the 
bigger  classes  should  be  found  in  the  secondary 
schools,  where  the  home  circumstances  of  the  pupils 
are  so  much  more  favourable,  and  also  the  school 
conditions.  There  is,  perhaps,  some  justification 
for  the  challenge,  but  as  things  stand  at  present 
there  is  not  likely  to  be  a  change  in  that  direction, 
since  the  more  advanced  work  and  the  greater 
amount  of  corrections  in  the  secondary  school  make 
greater  demands  on  the  teacher's  energies.  This 
applies  naturally  only  to  the  higher  forms  :  there 
seems  no  reason  why  there  should  be  any  difference 
in  the  size  of  classes  in  a  preparatory  school  as 
compared  with  an  elementary.  If  the  present  class 
system  remains  in  vogue,  it  is  probable  that  a 
maximum  lower  than  forty  will  be  fixed  for  elemen- 
tary schools.  But  the  chances  are  that  the  line  of 
development  will  so  emphasise  the  organisation  side 


144       The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

that   the   numbers   will   be   regulated   on   a   quite 
different  basis. 

With  regard  to  the  actual  process  of  teaching,  it 
is  too  often  taken  for  granted  that  the  private  coach 
has  everything  in  his  favour,  as  compared  with  the 
class-master.  The  teacher  of  one  pupil  can  study 
him  in  the  greatest  detail,  and  learn  exactly  which 
line  of  approach  is  best  for  each  subject  or  each  part 
of  a  subject.  Exactly  the  right  sort  of  illustrations 
can  be  supplied,  the  exact  line  of  error  anticipated, 
the  really  appropriate  vital  stimulus  applied  : 
whereas  in  dealing  with  a  class  we  must  content 
ourselves  with  illustrations  that  can  appeal  to  only 
a  limited  group  at  a  time ;  we  must  use  stimuli  that 
fall  flat  in  the  case  of  quite  a  number  of  the  individual 
pupils.  But  the  class-teacher  has  many  compensa- 
tions. To  begin-  with,  there  is  the  stimulus  of 
collective  work.  The  two  forces  of  imitation  and 
emulation  supply,  perhaps,  the  most  powerful 
stimuli  possible,  and  that  without  using  them  to 
any  unwholesome  extent.  The  very  fact  of  having 
to. present  the  same  matter  in  different  ways,  in 
order  to  meet  the  different  needs  of  the  various 
types  of  mind  in  the  class,  involves,  no  doubt,  a 
certain  strain,  but  the  result  is  good,  for  all  members 
of  the  class  get  their  benefit  from  it :  each  type  of 
boy  gets  his  special  needs  attended  to  once,  at  least, 
in  each  presentation.  The  dull  boys,  by  sheer  dint 
of  the  teacher's  repetition  in  different  forms,  have 
a  chance  of  picking  up  the  essential  point  from  one 
or  other  of  the  various  approaches.  Even  the  clever 
boys,  who  catch  the  teacher's  meaning  on  the  first 
presentation,  benefit  by  the  following  presentations 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching      145 


by  attaining  to  an  enriched  knowledge  of  what  they 
had  no  difficulty  in  understanding  as  a  bald  principle. 

While,  therefore,  admitting  all  the  advantages  of 
individual  instruction,  wherever  that  is  available, 
the  experienced  class- director  will,  from  time  to 
time,  be  glad  to  become  a  collective  teacher.  The 
prevailing  tendency  of  class-teachers  is  to  increase 
the  periods  during  which  the  class  is  disintegrated, 
but  never  to  give  up  the  power  of  integrating  it 
from  time  to  time.  Even  from  the  point  of  view 
of  bare  economy  of  time,  it  is  highly  desirable  that 
the  class  should  be  integrated  wherever  a  large 
number  of  pupils  show  that  they  are  making  the 
same  kind  of  mistake.  It  is  not  quite  true  that  a 
teacher  is  wasting  his  time  if  he  answers  precisely 
the  same  question  put  to  him  by  several  different 
pupils.  It  may  well  be  that  each  of  them  puts  it 
in  a  slightly  different  way ;  and,  in  any  case,  the 
value  of  an  explanation  given  personally  to  a  pupil 
is  not  infrequently  greater  than  exactly  the  same 
explanation  offered  to  a  whole  class.  Often  there  is 
just  the  slightest  peculiarity  in  the  way  in  which 
a  pupil  puts  his  difficulty,  and  the  skilful  teacher 
almost  unconsciously  puts  his  answer  in  such  a  way 
as  to  fit  into  the  peculiar  angle  presented.  How 
often  the  teacher  hears  the  relieved  remark  from  a 

puzzled  pupil,  "  Now  that  you  put  it  that  way " 

Very  much  is  to  be  learned  by  coming  into  direct 
contact  with  the  different  ways  in  which  pupils 
go  wrong. 

All  the  same,  the  repeated  integration  of  a  class 
during  an  instruction  period  is  an  economical  and 
stimulating    influence    that    cannot    be   given   up 
10 


146      The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

without  loss  of  effectiveness  in  teaching.  There 
is  still  a  place  for  the  class  as  a  teaching-unit, 
though  its  future  status  is  likely  to  be  mainly  that 
of  a  unit  of  organisation. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  working  on  the  assumption 
that  we  have  only  the  alternative  of  class-teaching 
and  individual-teaching.  But  assuming  that  the 
class  is  still  retained  as  the  organisation-unit,  it 
may  be  divided  up  into  groups  of  various  sizes. 
Class- teachers  in  the  past  did  not  overlook  the 
possibilities  of  this  method.  During  that  distressing 
period  when  huge  classes  had  to  be  taught  as  collec- 
tive units  and  yet  the  pupils  had  to  pass  examina- 
tions as  individuals,  no  means  was  overlooked  by 
which  alleviation  could  be  obtained.  The  funda- 
mental principium  divisionis  was  the  chance  of 
passing  the  individual  test  at  the  end  of  the  year. 
In  this  way  the  class  fell  naturally  into  a  pair  of 
very  unequal  groups,  a  big  one  of  sure  passes,  and 
a  small  one  of  doubtfuls  and  probable  failures.  The 
teacher's  interest  was  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  size  of 
the  group.  He  did  not  trouble  too  much  with  the 
sure  passes.  They  had  to  take  their  chance  of 
picking  up  all  that  they  needed  while  he  was  taking 
the  class  as  a  collective  unit.  When  for  individual 
work  it  was  divided  up  into  the  two  groups,  almost 
all  his  attention  was  given  to  the  doubtfuls.  As 
the  examination  approached,  his  attention  was 
more  and  more  concentrated  on  the  weaker  group, 
and  the  abler  pupils  were  kept  busy  working  out 
"  test- cards "  the  results  of  which  were  easily 
checked.  The  effects  were  not  altogether  bad  for 
the  bigger  group,   though  for  the  smaller  group 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching      147 

that  absorbed  the  teacher's  energies  the  same  could 
hardly  be  said.  The  abler  pupils  being  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  left  to  themselves  were  able  to 
work  out  their  salvation  in  their  own  way.  They 
had  a  sufficient  dose  of  the  "  wholesome  neglect " 
that  would  benefit  some  of  our  overtaught  schools. 
It  will  be  seen,  however,  that  this  grouping  was 
not  really  an  educational  one  at  all,  but  merely  a 
trick  in  order  that  the  teacher  might  concentrate 
on  that  group  of  pupils  upon  whom  his  reputation 
and  that  of  the  school  rested ;  for  in  those  days 
the  point  at  issue  was  not  what  good  work  the 
school  did,  but  how  much  bad  work  it  could  hide. 
True,  some  of  the  abler  and  more  conscientious 
teachers  under  the  old  rigime  did  endeavour  to 
make  a  compromise  between  duty  to  their  better 
pupils  and  duty  to  the  school  board  that  demanded 
a  high  percentage  of  passes.  But  even  the  very 
best  of  them  could  not  make  much  of  a  grouping 
according  to  advancement,  in  a  crowd  of  eighty  or 
more  pupils.  Under  more  favourable  conditions, 
it  is  possible  to  make  quite  a  reasonable  grouping, 
each  group  working  along  its  own  lines  at  its  own 
stage  of  advancement.  Mr.  Norman  MacMunn  has 
worked  out  this  idea  for  all  it  is  worth.  He  dis- 
tinguishes between  the  group  system  and  the  system 
of  pairs.  A  class  of  thirty  may  be  divided  up  into 
five  groups  of  six  each  or  six  groups  of  five,  or  it 
may  be  split  up  into  fifteen  pairs.  Mr.  MacMunn 
seems  to  regard  the  two  systems  as  different ;  in 
other  words,  there  appears  to  be  something  intrin- 
sically different  between  the  pair  as  a  unit  and  the 
group  of  three,  four,  or  five  as  a  unit.     We  do  not 


148       The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

yet  know  enough  about  the  psychology  of  the  group 
to  be  able  to  speak  dogmatically  on  this  subject, 
but  it  does  look  as  if  there  is  something  in  Mr. 
MacMunn's  claim.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the 
Jesuits  had  a  habit  of  dividing  up  their  classes  in 
this  pairwise  fashion,  but  their  motive  was  different. 
They  set  up  a  series  of  rivals,  cemuli,  who  were 
encouraged  to  keep  an  eye  on  each  other  and  show 
up  each  other's  faults,  and  in  this  way  stimulate 
each  other  to  better  things.  Mr.  MacMunn's  pairs 
are  partners,  not  competitors.  This  notion  of 
partnership  is  extended  also  to  the  larger  groups, 
and  is  in  fact  the  contribution  that  he  makes  to  the 
newer  developments  of  class-teaching.  His  scheme 
of  differential  partnership  introduces  a  principle 
that  provides  stepping-stones  to  the  Dalton  Plan  or 
supplies  an  alternative  to  it. 

It  will  be  argued,  as  usual,  that  this  plan  of 
mutual  instruction  is  no  new  thing,  and  was  fully 
worked  out  on  the  monitorial  system.  But  the 
new  scheme  is  a  real  advance  on  the  old.  It  does 
not  attempt  the  impossible.  There  is  no  wild 
claim  that  one  master,  by  delegation  of  his  functions, 
can  teach  as  many  pupils  as  can  be  brought  together 
in  one  place.  Mr.  MacMunn  knows  too  well  the 
range  of  the  influence  of  one  master,  and  realises 
just  how  far  he  can  be  diluted  without  the  class 
suffering.  He  does  not  want  his  differential  partner- 
ship to  increase  the  size  of  the  class  under  a  single 
teacher.  His  plan  is  to  get  the  most  possible  out 
of  that  teacher,  while  increasing  the  amount  of 
positive  independent  work  done  by  each  pupil. 
Everything  must  be  done  to  allow  the  individual 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching      149 

pupil  to  take  an  active  part  during  the  whole 
lesson  period.  Like  Dr.  Montessori  he  has  great 
faith  in  the  pupil's  love  of  work,  and  regards  it  as 
a  profound  blunder  for  teachers  to  believe  that 
pupils  love  slacking.  If  they  do  not  face  their 
school-work  properly,  it  is  all  the  schoolmaster's 
fault  : 

"  The  schoolmaster  has  innocently  spent  thousands  of 
years  in  teaching  children  to  loaf  when  they  wanted  to  work. 
All  they  asked  for  was  work  in  activity.  The  schoolmaster 
replied :  '  You  must  work  in  passivity  or  not  at  all.  What 
you  call  work  in  activity  I  call  play.  And  as  I  know 
everything,  it  is  play.  And  if  you  play  you  shall  be  pun- 
ished.' "  1 

Under  the  ordinary  class- teaching  conditions,  the 
pupil's  share  in  the  conversation  is  strictly  limited. 
Few  teachers  realise  how  much  of  a  lesson  hour 
they  monopolise  in  their  own  talking.  When 
actual  records  have  been  kept  of  the  relative  amounts 
of  talking  done  by  teacher  and  pupils  during  a  class 
hour,  the  teachers  flatly  declined  to  believe  the 
evidence  of  those  who  had  stop- watched  their 
speech.  When  it  comes  to  a  subject  like  modern 
languages,  where  a  certain  amount  of  practice  in 
speaking  is  of  the  essence  of  the  bargain,  the  loss 
of  speaking-time  under  the  ordinary  class  system  is 
immense.  Mr.  MacMunn  supposes,  not  very  hope- 
fully, that  most  masters  have  realised  that  in  a 
class  of  twenty  pupils  studying  French,  if  the  master 
speaks  for  half  an  hour,  explaining  and  asking 
questions,  "  a  boy  has  only  a  minute  and  a  half  in 
which  to  express  himself."     It  is  to  remedy  this 

1  The  Child's  Path  to  Freedom,  p.  25. 


150      The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

deplorable  state  of  affairs  that  Mr.  MacMunn  has 
produced  his  Differential  Partnership  Books  by  the 
use  of  which  the  class  may  be  divided  up  into  pairs, 
and  thus  each  boy  have  a  fair  chance  of  activity 
throughout  the  lesson  period.  Part  of  the  time  each 
boy  catechises,  the  rest  of  the  time  he  answers,  but 
he  is  active  all  the  time.  I  confess  to  be  a  little 
anxious  about  the  results  in  such  a  subject  as  French, 
where  accent  is  usually  allowed  to  subtend  a  very 
big  angle,  but  in  other  subjects  where  results  are 
more  easily  checked  collectively,  the  scheme  should 
and  does  work  extremely  well.  This  differential 
partnership  system  in  fact  supplies  an  excellent 
illustration  of  how  the  class-unit  can  be  satis- 
factorily worked  in  with  a  smaller  unit.  There 
can  be  first  an  integration  of  the  class  with  a  little 
demonstration  and  general  guidance,  then  a  splitting 
into  the  groups,  and  finally  a  redintegration  for 
purposes  of  correction  and  recapitulation. 

There  is  one  body  of  teachers  that  is  not  suffi- 
ciently considered  in  connection  with  this  splitting 
up  of  classes.  The  one-teacher  schools  supply  an 
excellent  field  for  the  exercise  of  ingenuity  in 
dividing  and  combining  classes.  His  Majesty's 
Inspectors  of  Schools,  who  best  of  all  know  this 
type  of  teachers,  are  full  of  admiration  for  the 
wonderful  work  they  do  under  adverse  conditions. 
Naturally  we  all  join  in  this  admiration,  yet  those 
who  see  the  dangers  of  the  class  system  are  less 
surprised  than  some  others  at  the  excellent  results 
gained  in  such  schools.  It  must  be  admitted  that 
the  strain  on  the  teachers  is  extreme,  but  the  very 
limitations    imposed  by  the   situation  lead   to    a 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching      151 

certain  elasticity  of  interaction  between  teacher  and 
pupil  that  is  all  to  the  good.  Under  such  con- 
ditions an  ingenious  mistress  has  often  half  a  dozen 
different  systems  of  classification  at  work  at  once. 
By  all  the  rules  of  the  game  her  work  should  result 
in  chaos,  but  instead  the  individual  pupils  make  at 
least  as  much  progress  as  they  would  have  made 
had  they  been  kept  rigidly  to  one  class  in  a  city 
school.  The  moral  is  not  that  we  should  increase 
the  number  of  under-staffed  schools  in  order  that 
children  should  have  a  greater  degree  of  liberty  at 
the  expense  of  overworking  the  teachers,  but  that 
we  should  realise  that  here  we  have  an  unsought 
demonstration  of  the  compensation  accompanying 
a  certain  degree  of  what  some  tidy- minded  people 
are  apt  to  call  neglect.  The  single- teacher  schools 
are  educational  pioneers. 

One  great  disadvantage  of  the  class  system  of 
teaching  is  the  bias  it  gives  towards  doing  everything 
on  the  block  system.  It  is  remarkable,  for  example, 
how  seldom  class- teachers  give  their  pupils  any  help 
regarding  how  to  set  about  learning.  Quite  com- 
monly the  only  help  given  is  the  bald  instruction 
issued  to  the  whole  class  :  ' '  For  to-morrow  prepare 
the  Disjunctive  Pronoun,  or  the  Gulf  Stream,  or 
the  Theory  of  Indices  from  page  210  to  213  inclu- 
sive." One  boy  in  whom  I  was  particularly  in- 
terested will  never  forget  his  first  experience  in 
map-drawing.  His  master's  help  consisted  of  the 
simple  sentence :  ' '  Draw  a  map  of  England  for 
next  Wednesday."  The  boy  worked  according  to 
his  lights.  These  showed  him  that  the  map  in  his 
atlas  was  divided  up  into  little  rectangles.     He  took 


152       The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

these  to  be  the  units  of  construction,  and  worked 
up  his  map  rectangle  by  rectangle,  producing  as 
the  result  a  drawing  that  had  some  at  least  of  the 
qualities  of  a  patchwork  quilt.  The  master  com- 
plained with  some  vehemence  that  he  could  not 
understand  how  the  boy  could  be  so  stupid,  and  by 
this  complaint  proclaimed  his  own  professional 
incompetence.  It  is  the  teacher's  business  to 
understand  such  things.     That  is  what  he  is  for. 

It  is  not  that  the  teacher  should  accept  the 
responsibility  for  the  actual  learning  done  by  the 
pupil.  We  cannot  learn  for  another  :  yet  we  may 
be  able  to  teach  another  how  to  learn.  Here  arises 
a  certain  danger  of  being  misunderstood.  There  is 
no  inconsistency  in  maintaining  on  the  one  hand 
that  many  teachers  teach  too  much,  and  in  main- 
taining on  the  other  that  teachers  do  not  do  enough 
in  the  way  of  helping  their  pupils  to  learn.  The 
teacher  who  teaches  too  much  reduces  his  pupil  to 
a  more  or  less  passively  receptive  state.  There 
must  be  activity  on  the  pupil's  part,  otherwise  there 
can  be  no  communication  of  knowledge  at  all.  The 
more  passive  the  state  of  the  pupil,  the  less  chance 
of  his  learning.  Still,  it  may  be  asked  whether  the 
teacher  will  mend  matters  much  by  talking  about 
how  to  learn,  instead  of  talking  about  the  subject- 
matter.  Teaching  how  to  learn,  however,  is  not 
entirely  a  matter  of  talking.  Certain  things  must 
be  explained,  no  doubt,  by  word  of  mouth,  but 
learning  consists  mainly  in  the  application  of 
principles.  Take  such  a  simple  matter  as  learning 
by  rote  a  piece  of  poetry.  How  seldom  does  the 
pupil  get  any  instruction  about  how  to  proceed  ! 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching       153 

He  is  told  to  "  learn  the  first  sixteen  lines  of  Gray's 
Elegy,"  and  the  matter  is  handed  over  to  his  own 
resources.  He  can  do  what  he  pleases,  so  long  as 
the  lines  come  trippingly  from  his  lips  next  morning. 
The  teacher  does  not  concern  himself  about  what 
method  the  pupil  has  followed,  or  how  long  the 
preparation  lasted.  Now  almost  certainly  the  pupil 
will  learn  the  lines  quatrain  by  quatrain,  whereas 
the  teacher  who  is  keeping  an  eye  on  the  newer 
experimental  methods  knows  that  the  most 
economical  way  of  preparing  is  to  learn  by  reading 
over  the  sixteen  lines  consecutively — that  is,  to 
learn  the  passage  as  a  whole,  and  not  as  a  group  of 
four  separate  quatrains.  This  is  a  particularly 
good  illustration  as  it  applies  to  learning  of  all  sorts.1 

There  are  those  who  would  suggest  that  the  whole 
of  the  last  paragraph  should  be  recast  in  the  past 
tense,  for  they  maintain  that  the  new  teacher  does 
train  his  pupils  how  to  prepare  their  work.  Pro- 
fessor W.  C.  Bagley  in  his  Craftsmanship  in  Teaching 
has  a  chapter  on  "  The  Possibility  of  Training 
Children  How  to  Study/'  in  which  he  finds  fault 
with  the  tendency  of  most  educational  books  of  our 
day  to  imply  that  teachers  are  doing  very  little  to 
solve  troublesome  problems  such  as  this.  He  pro- 
tests that  "As  a  matter  of  fact,  many  teachers  are 
securing  excellent  results  from  their  attempts  to 
teach  their  pupils  how  to  study."  ■     What  is  true  of 

1  It  is  also  a  particularly  irritating  one,  as  it  shows  the 
poverty  of  the  land  because  we  all  quote  it,  sometimes 
giving  it  a  name  as  "  Steffens'  Law."  It  is  encouraging, 
however,  to  find  that  a  much  bigger  selection  of  practical 
maxims  is  gradually  developing  in  the  hands  of  experi- 
menters. *  Op.  cit.,  p.  149. 


154       The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

America  may  also  be  true  of  Britain,  but  the 
question  remains  :  Is  this  attention  to  the  teaching 
of  how  to  study  a  general  one  ?  It  is  true  that  since 
learning  and  teaching  are  correlative  terms,  atten- 
tion to  the  one  necessarily  implies  the  acquiring  of 
some  knowledge  of  the  other.  For  example,  those 
interested  in  this  subject  will  turn  with  great  expecta- 
tions to  Professor  S.  S.  Colvin's  The  Learning  Process, 
only  to  find  that  the  matter  is  dealt  with  almost 
entirely  from  the  teacher's  standpoint.  The  book 
is  excellent,  and  no  teacher  can  read  it  without 
profit,  but  it  is  not  quite  the  sort  of  thing  we  are 
here  demanding. 

Professor  F.  M.  McMurry's  How  to  Study  and 
Teaching  How  to  Study  is  more  to  the  point.  Here 
we  have  the  subject  definitely  treated  from  our 
present  standpoint.  The  author  does  not  think  it 
"  necessary  to  collect  proofs  that  young  people  do 
not  learn  how  to  study,  because  teachers  admit  the 
fact  very  generally."     Indeed,  he  maintains  that : 

"  All  along  the  line  teachers  condole  with  one  another 
over  this  evil,  college  professors  placing  the  blame  on  the 
instructors  in  the  high  school,  and  the  latter  passing  it 
down  to  teachers  in  the  elementary  school."  1 

This,  indeed,  is  one  of  the  very  few  points  "  on 
which  teachers  and  parents  are  well  agreed." 
Further,  Professor  McMurry  finds  an  additional 
proof  of  the  general  neglect  of  training  pupils  how 
to  study  in  the  scarcity  of  literature  on  the  subject : 

"  In  the  vast  quantity  of  valuable  educational  literature 
that  has  been  published,  careful  searching  reveals  only  two 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  6. 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching      155 

books  in  English  and  none  in  German  on  the  'Art  of  Study/ 
Even  these  two  are  ordinary  books  on  teaching  with  an 
extraordinary  title."  1 

This  was  written  in  1909,  and  since  that  time  a 
great  deal  has  appeared  on  the  subject,  all  justifying 
the  view  that  the  present  really  is  a  new  era  in 
education.  Dr.  Starch,  for  example,  in  his  valuable 
Educational  Psychology ,  has  an  admirable  chapter 
on  "  How  to  Study."  It  is  noteworthy,  indeed,  that 
nearly  three-quarters  of  the  whole  book  are  occupied 
with  a  treatment  of  the  psychology  of  learning. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  up  to  this  point  the 
reference  by  other  writers  has  always  been  to  study- 
ing, not  learning.  Professor  McMurry  falls  back 
upon  the  German  distinction,  according  to  which 
learning  is  something  inferior  to  study.  Children  at 
the  elementary-school  stage  may  be  said  to  learn  in 
Germany  :  it  is  only  pupils  of  the  secondary  schools 
and  universities  that  may  be  said  to  study.  But  it 
appears  better  to  take  the  view  that  to  learn  is  the 
natural  correlative  of  to  teach.  When  we  truly 
teach,  then  our  pupils  inevitably  learn.  A  corre- 
sponding statement  cannot  be  made  about  studying. 
When  we  have  learned  something,  we  are,  by  the 
very  use  of  the  term,  assumed  to  have  mastered  it. 
This  cannot  be  said  to  be  a  necessary  part  of  the 
connotation  of  the  verb  to  study.  No  doubt  we 
may  learn  a  subject  in  a  wrong  way.  We  may  have 
learnt  something  by  rote,  for  example,  and  therefore 
have  no  just  claim  to  know  the  matter  of  which 
we  have  learnt  the  expression :    all  the  same,  we 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  10. 


156       The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

may  be  said  to  have  mastered  that  part  of  our 
subject  in  our  own  bad  way.  We  have  at  least  a 
verbal  mastery  of  it.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
we  say  that  we  have  studied  a  subject  we  do  not 
necessarily  claim  to  have  reached  any  positive 
knowledge  or  skill  at  all.  Learning,  in  fact,  involves 
a  reference  to  result  as  well  as  to  process,  whereas 
studying  is  confined  to  process.  A  natural  objection 
may  be  raised  to  this  interpretation  of  the  word 
learn.  If  it  be  admitted  to  be  the  correlative  of 
teach,  there  must  be  a  teacher  involved  in  all  cases 
of  learning,  which  would  seem  to  stultify  those  who 
ask  the  otherwise  unobjectionable  question  :  Can 
we  teach  children  to  learn  ?  But  the  problem 
remains,  even  though  the  need  of  a  teacher  be 
admitted ;  for  in  the  process  of  learning,  the  pupil 
may  be  his  own  teacher.  Indeed,  progress  in  educa- 
tion may  be  measured  by  the  ratio  which  the 
teacher- element  bears  to  the  pupil- element  in  the 
experience  of  the  educand.  At  the  early  stages  the 
external  teacher- element  predominates :  the  pupil 
is  to  a  large  extent  passive — not,  of  course,  in  actual 
expenditure  of  energy,  but  as  a  guiding  force.  All 
real  educational  progress  of  the  individual  implies 
the  quickening  of  the  pupil's  powers  of  not  merely 
responding  to  the  stimulus  applied  by  the  external 
teacher,  but  of  supplying  stimulus  on  his  own  account. 
The  advancing  pupil  becomes  increasingly  his  own 
teacher.  The  success  of  a  teacher  may  be  fairly 
gauged  by  the  degree  in  which  he  has  made  it 
possible  for  his  pupils  to  do  without  him.  The  good 
teacher,  like  the  good  doctor,  has  done  his  best  work 
when,  so  far  as  a  given  case  is  concerned,  his  occupa- 


The  Knell  of  Class -teaching      157 

tion  is  gone.  Teaching  a  pupil  how  to  learn  is 
teaching  him  how  to  dispense  with  his  external 
teacher.  It  is  fortunate  for  our  self-respect,  as  well 
as  for  the  status  of  our  profession,  that  it  is  extremely 
difficult  to  teach  young  people  how  to  learn.  How- 
ever skilful  we  may  be,  we  need  never  fear  that  in 
the  limited  period  of  an  ordinary  school  course  we 
shall  have  made  our  services  unnecessary  in  the 
case  of  the  majority  of  our  pupils.  In  all  but  quite 
exceptional  cases  we  can  foster  to  the  utmost  the 
self-teaching  instinct  in  our  pupils,  without  any 
danger  of  its  acquiring  such  power  as  to  be  inde- 
pendent of  our  help.  The  nature  of  the  help  may 
change  with  the  strengthening  of  the  subjective 
teacher-pole  in  the  pupil :  we  become  more  and 
more  instruments  to  be  used  by  the  pupil  for  the 
purpose  of  favouring  his  learning  process,  but  we 
are  none  the  less  important  because  our  pupil  is 
able  to  make  a  more  skilful  use  of  our  help.  At  the 
earlier  stages  our  main  function  should  be,  in  fact, 
this  very  process  of  teaching  the  pupil  how  to 
learn,  in  order  that  as  he  progresses  he  may  the 
more  profitably  avail  himself  of  what  we  can  do 
for  him. 

The  whole  problem  of  self- education  is  involved 
here.  We  are  all  familiar  with  the  incontrovertible 
platitudes  in  favour  of  this  form.  None  of  us  need 
trouble  to  find  fault  with  such  saws  as  "  All  true 
education  is  self- education  "  ;  "  There  is  no  educa- 
tion but  self- education."  Just  as  a  doctor  may 
cheerfully  admit  that "  Nature  is  the  best  physician," 
and  yet  go  his  rounds  without  loss  of  self-respect, 
so  the  teacher  may  accept  all  the  praise  of  self- 


158       The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

education,  and  yet  feel  that  he  has  an  honourable 
and  most  important  function  in  the  educative 
process.  We  need  not  here  labour  the  distinction, 
important  as  it  is  in  other  connections,  between 
self- education  and  self-instruction.  For  in  both 
processes  the  teacher  has  his  function,  though  no 
doubt  the  professional  teacher  feels  that  his  special 
function  is  to  be  found  more  in  relation  to  self- 
instruction.  The  self- instructed  man  has  certain 
advantages  as  compared  with  the  man  who  has  been 
instructed  entirely  by  another,  and  either  against 
his  desire  or  without  any  helpful  impulse  coming 
from  within.  But  the  man  who  is  eager  to  learn  and 
has  no  teacher  is  at  a  clear  disadvantage  compared 
with  his  compeer,  who  not  only  has  the  desire  to 
learn,  but  has  the  help  of  a  man  who  can  save  the 
enormous  waste  of  energy  that  must  take  place  in 
the  case  of  one  who  cannot  benefit  by  the  experience 
of  others,  and  must  make  his  own.  Given  two  men 
of  the  same  capacity  and  the  same  desire  to  acquire 
knowledge,  the  one  who  has  the  help  of  a  good 
teacher  will  make  much  more  progress  in  a  given 
time  than  the  other  who  has  not. 

Accepting  the  simple  definition  of  studying  as 
"  learning  under  school  conditions,"  Dr.  Starch 
plunges  at  once  into  an  analysis  of  types  of  studying. 
These  are  three  :  (i)  the  reading  type,  which  he 
believes  to  account  for  four-fifths  of  the  work  done 
at  the  elementary  school,  and  probably  two-thirds 
of  high  school  and  university  work  ;  (ii)  the  labora- 
tory type,  which  includes  all  sorts  of  manipulation 
of  apparatus,  and  the  usual  methods  of  observing 
and  recording.     This  is  the  type  that  is  getting  a 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching      159 

somewhat  new  orientation,  as  we  have  seen  in 
E.  J.  Swift's  The  Mind  in  the  Making,  and,  as  we 
shall  see  in  our  next  chapter,  in  the  important 
development  of  Miss  Parkhurst's  work  ;  (iii)  the 
analytical  or  reasoning  type,  in  which  the  amount 
of  reading  is  relatively  small,  but  is  very  condensed. 
The  extra  energy  is  not  expended  on  apparatus  or 
external  observation,  but  rather  in  reflection  as  in 
philosophy  and  the  higher  mathematics. 

On  the  practical  side,  Dr.  Starch  got  a  hundred 
university  students  of  all  grades  to  write  papers 
for  him  on  Difficulties  and  Hindrances  in  Studying 
and  How  to  Overcome  them,1  from  which  he  draws 
certain  very  useful  pieces  of  advice,  certainly  the 
most  striking  and  useful  of  which  is  : 

"  If  you  have  difficulty  in  overcoming  inertia,  just  begin 
to  go  through  the  motions  of  work  ...  sit  down,  take  hold 
of  book,  paper,  pencil,  or  whatever  may  be  needed,  and 
begin  to  write  or  read  or  figure.  .  .  .  This  will  automatically 
start  the  mental  process  going  relative  to  the  work  to  be 
done,  and  before  you  realise  it,  you  will  be  in  the  midst  of 
the  task,  reading,  thinking,  and  writing  in  an  interested 
manner  concerning  the  problems  in  hand."  2 

In  an  earlier  book,  How  to  Study  Effectively  (1916), 
G.  M.  Whipple  gives  a  still  more  detailed  series  of 
concrete  hints  on  the  methods  of  study.  One 
result  of  this  great  attention  to  the  subject  is  that 
"  how  to  study  "  has  risen  to  the  rank  of  a  com- 
pound adjective  in  educational  writing.  It  means 
the  opposite  of  conventional  methods  that  involve 

1  Educational  Psychology,  p.  180. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  182. 


160       The  Knell  of  Class-teaching 

no  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the  pupils.  For 
-example,  "  how-to-study  directions  "  means  direc- 
tions that  demand  effort  from  the  pupils  and  throw 
responsibility  upon  them.  A  further  development 
from  the  how-to-study  attitude  is  what  is  now 
familiarly  known  as  Supervised  Study.  The  lead 
here  has  been  taken  by  Professor  A.  L.  Hall-Quest 
of  the  University  of  Cincinnati,  who  published  a 
book  under  that  title  in  1916.  The  point  of  the 
new  scheme  is  the  organisation  of  school  study  in 
such  a  way  as  to  secure  independent  working  by 
the  pupils  without  loss  of  the  necessary  guidance 
from  the  teacher.  Naturally  it  takes  different  forms 
in  different  quarters,  but  the  Hall-Quest  variety 
divides  the  long  lesson  period  (eighty  or  ninety 
minutes,  but  for  supervised  study  sixty  is  on  the 
whole  preferred)  into  three  portions,  the  first 
taking  one-fifth  and  the  two  remaining  two-fifths 
each.  The  first  part  is  called  the  review  and  includes 
a  resume  of  previous  work  or  a  preparation  for  what 
is  just  coming.  The  second  is  given  up  to  the 
assignment,  during  which  the  pupils'  curiosity  is 
roused  but  not  satisfied,  and  indications  are  given 
of  how  the  problems  raised  may  be  dealt  with. 
The  third  period  is  devoted  to  silent  individual 
study.  There  is  a  private  arrangement  of  the 
pupils  in  the  teacher's  mind  into  inferior,  average, 
and  superior,  but  the  pupils  are  not  supposed  ever 
to  hear  of  this  classification,  though  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  the  matter  can  be  kept  secret,  since  the 
assignment  of  work  takes  a  threefold  form  to  meet 
the  varying  abilities  of  the  pupils.  However,  the 
three  grades  are  not  regarded  as  permanent,  and 


The  Knell  of  Class-teaching      161 

pupils  can  move  up  or  down  in  this  private  grading. 
The  principle  underlying  the  whole  is  that  "  the 
work  of  the  school  is  properly  to  supervise  and 
direct  the  individual  while  he  teaches  himself."  l 

Critics  of  the  scheme  object  that  it  tends  to  pro- 
duce greater  dependence  of  the  pupil  upon  the 
teacher,  but  its  scandalised  supporters  hasten  to 
explain  that  it  acts  in  precisely  the  opposite  direction 
— it  being  always  understood  that  the  teacher's 
directions  are  of  the  proper  "  how-to-study  "  type. 
The  plan  has  been  tested  at  various  centres,  and  on 
the  whole  comes  out  well.  Its  main  interest  in  this 
chapter  is  that  it  supplies  an  example  of  an  attempt 
to  combine  the  two  functions  of  the  class.  It  is 
obvious  that  during  the  first  three-fifths  of  the 
lesson  period  the  class  is  a  teaching-unit,  during  the 
final  two-fifths  it  is  an  organisation-unit.  In  its 
assignments  it  lays  great  stress  on  the  purposive 
element,  but  on  the  whole  does  not  leave  enough 
freedom  in  the  hands  of  the  pupils  to  satisfy  those 
who  have  put  on  the  black  cap  and  have  duly  passed 
sentence  on  the  class  as  a  teaching-unit.  We  hear 
almost  nothing  of  Supervised  Study  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  On  the  other  hand,  we  hear  a  great 
deal  about  a  method  that  began  on  the  other  side, 
but  now  seems  to  subtend  a  bigger  angle  here  than 
in  the  country  of  its  origin,  a  scheme  so  important 
that  it  certainly  demands  a  chapter  to  itself. 

1  A.  Laura  McGregor,  Supervised  Study  in  English,  p.  3. 


II 


CHAPTER   VII 
THE   DALTON    PLAN 

PERHAPS  the  most  dramatic  and  systematic 
break  away  from  the  class  teaching-unit  is 
supplied  by  what  is  widely  known  as  the  Dalton 
Plan,  because  it  was  first  tried  out  in  the  town 
High  School  in  Dalton,  Massachusetts,  by  Miss 
Helen  Parkhurst.  It  was  projected  in  1919  and 
carried  out  in  the  following  year.  It  is  sometimes 
called  the  "  Laboratory  School "  plan,  and,  in  a 
book  published  in  1922,  Miss  Evelyn  Dewey  calls 
it  the  Dalton  Laboratory  Plan.  The  underlying 
idea  is  that  the  class-rooms  are  now  regarded  as 
workshops  or  laboratories  where  the  boys  and  girls 
carry  out  the  practical  work  of  their  studies  by  the 
help  of  all  the  necessary  apparatus  gathered 
together  there,  just  as  the  scientific  apparatus  is 
gathered  in  an  ordinary  laboratory. 

Put  very  generally,  the  Plan  consists  in  throwing 
a  large  amount  of  responsibility  upon  the  pupils, 
prescribing  the  total  amount  to  be  studied  for  a 
given  period,  say  a  month,  and  then  leaving  them 
to  work  out  their  own  salvation  during  those  four 
weeks,  on  the  understanding  that  they  cover  the 
whole  ground  by  the  end  of  the  period  and  are  pre- 
pared to  stand  a  test  of  the  thoroughness  of  what 
they  have  done.     The  pupils  may  begin  with  which- 

162 


The  Dalton  Plan  163 

ever  subject  they  please,  and  work  at  it  as  long  as 
they  like.  They  can  work  some  subjects  more  or 
less  simultaneously,  or  concentrate  on  one  for  a  day 
or  two.  The  teachers  thus  give  up  teaching,  and 
become  advisers  who  keep  regular  hours  in  certain 
class-rooms  where  they  can  be  consulted.  But 
they  are  not  supposed  to  interfere  with  the  arrange- 
ments of  the  pupils,  who  may  or  may  not  use  their 
opportunities  of  consulting  them.  Each  pupil  can 
thus  go  at  his  own  pace,  and  follow  his  own  inclina- 
tions, so  long  as  he  makes  the  necessary  progress. 
He  is  put  in  the  position  of  the  German  student 
who  in  the  old  days  before  the  war  exercised  his 
Lernfreiheit.  He  was  left  to  his  own  devices,  and 
could  cut  lectures  almost  as  much  as  he  liked,  so 
long  as  he  reached  the  proper  standard  at  the  fateful 
final  examination.  The  scheme  worked  not  very 
badly  in  the  case  of  the  young  men  at  the  university, 
but  many  people  naturally  shook  their  heads  over 
this  daring  innovation  in  a  school.  To  be  sure  it 
has  been  stated  above  in  its  baldest  terms,  and 
with  the  strict  rigour  of  the  Plan.  In  actual  prac- 
tice at  Dalton  certain  limits  were  set.  The  pupils' 
time  from  8.40  to  11.50  was  quite  free  to  follow  the 
Plan  :  the  other  school  hours,  however,  were  given 
up  to  recitation  in  the  normal  American  way. 
During  the  free  hours  the  pupils  studied  as  they 
pleased,  the  teachers  confining  themselves  to  the 
following  five  duties  : 

(i)  To  preserve  an  atmosphere  of  study  in  the  room, 
(ii)  To  explain  any  detail  of  the  assignment, 
(iii)  To  give  information  with  regard  to  the  use  of  de- 
partmental equipment. 


164  The  Dalton  Plan 

(iv)  To  give  suggestions  with  regard  to  methods  of  attack- 
ing particular  problems. 

(v)  When  the  need  actually  arises,  to  give  full  explanation 
of  a  point  and  of  its  relation  to  the  general  principle  of  the 
subject.1 


It  is  claimed  that  the  plan  works  exceedingly 
well,  and  that  the  pupils,  being  left  to  their  own 
devices,  and  allowed  to  follow  the  method  that  most 
appeals  to  them,  are  able  to  make  much  more 
progress  with  their  actual  studies,  while  at  the  same 
time  acquiring  confidence  in  facing  new  problems 
on  their  own  account.  Naturally  at  the  beginning 
there  is  always  some  confusion  and  lack  of  power  of 
correlation.  Some  subjects  get  better  done  than 
others.  But  it  is  found  that  as  things  settle  down 
it  becomes  increasingly  possible  for  pupils  to  regu- 
late their  work  so  as  to  cover  the  whole  assignment 
in  the  prescribed  period.-  An  interesting  feature  is 
that  the  pupils  as  a  whole — of  course,  there  were 
notable  exceptions — preferred  to  begin  with  the 
more  difficult  and  distasteful  subjects. 

The  relation  between  Montessorianism  and  Dal- 
tonism is  of  interest.  There  are  those  who  would 
put  the  matter  very  bluntly  and  class  them  plainly 
as  cause  and  effect.  No  doubt  the  Montessorians 
were  first  in  the  field ;  to  them  must  be  conceded 
certain  stimulating  influences ;  and  Daltonians  are 
willing  to  give  credit  where  credit  is  due.  But  the 
Dalton  Plan  is  not  fixed  and  complete  :  it  is  still  in 
the  melting-pot,  and  is  taking  many  forms.  For 
example,    Mrs.    O'Brien    Harris    at    the    County 

1  Evelyn  Dewey,  The  Dalton  Laboratory  Plan,  p.  75. 


The  D  alt  on  Plan  165 

Secondary  School,  Clapton,  has  developed  an  original 
form  based  upon  "  Houses  "  instead  of  upon  classes, 
where  we  have  clearly  the  substitution  of  a  larger 
organisation-unit  for  a  smaller  one.  The  House- 
Mistress  becomes  the  unifying  influence  that  mode- 
rates among  the  various  specialists.  Mrs.  O'Brien 
Harris  writes  me  as  follows  : 

"  Our  main  differences  from  '  Dalton  '  are  (i)  the  reten- 
tion of  class-teaching  as  an  integral  part  of  our  work,  and 
(ii)  the  relief  to  the  congestion  of  the  time-table  by  arranging 
that  the  number  of  subjects  taken  by  a  girl  in  any  one  term 
is  (except  in  rare  cases)  less  than  the  full  number  which 
she  studies  during  the  pre-matriculation  period.  The  form 
system  practically,  though  not  necessarily,  requires  the 
full  number  each  term. 

"  I  think  that  the  resemblances  are  more  noteworthy 
considering  the  different  antecedents  of  Miss  Parkhurst 
and  myself.  I  think  we  have  common  ground  in  having  taken 
Dr.  Montessori's  Training  Course." 

I  have  ventured  to  italicise  the  concluding  words, 
as  indicating  the  attitude  of  some  reformers  to  the 
Founder.  Elsewhere  in  her  letter  Mrs.  O'Brien 
Harris  says  that  her  scheme  is  her  "  contribution  to 
the  adaptation  of  Montessori  principles  to  secondary 
school  work,  under  present  Board  of  Education 
limitations.' •  It  is  pleasant  to  find  open-minded 
and  ingenious  teachers  willing  to  give  credit  for  the 
inspiration  they  have  received  from  seminal  writers 
like  Dr.  Montessori,  but  it  is  not  a  profitable  occupa- 
tion to  spend  time  allocating  priority  to  the  different 
inventors.  The  Dalton  Plan  is  really  a  crystallisa- 
tion of  a  widely  prevailing  desire  for  greater  freedom 
for  children  in  their  school- work.     I  cannot  do  better 


1 66  The  Dalton  Plan 

than  quote  in  illustration  from  the  brief  description 
in  a  leaflet  that  the  honorary  secretary  of  the  Dalton 
Association  has  been  kind  enough  to  send  me  : 

"  The  Dalton  Plan  is  a  scheme  of  educational  reorganisa- 
tion applicable  to  the  school  work  of  pupils  from  eight  to 
eighteen  years  of  age.  It  aims  at  giving  the  child  freedom, 
making  the  school  a  community  where  the  mutual  inter- 
action of  groups  is  possible,  and  it  approaches  the  whole 
problem  of  work  from  the  pupil's  point  of  view,  giving  him 
more  responsibility  for,  and  interest  in,  his  education. 

"  The  form  rooms  become  subject  laboratories,  wherein 
are  collected  all  the  books  and  apparatus  relative  to  the 
particular  subjects. 

"  The  pupils  are  still  grouped  in  forms  for  convenience' 
sake." 

The  final  paragraph  acknowledges  the  retention 
of  the  class  as  an  organisation-unit,  while  the 
penultimate  paragraph  suggests  the  alternative  title 
that  we  have  seen  to  be  the  Laboratory  Plan  antici- 
pated by  E.  J.  Swift's  Laboratory  Plan  in  his  The 
Mind  in  the  Making  ten  years  before  the  Dalton 
Plan  was  enunciated. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  this  anticipation  by 
Swift,  Nunn,  and  others  in  any  way  diminishes  the 
praise  due  to  the  various  initiators  and  reformers 
who  have  set  the  Plan  in  motion  as  a  going  concern. 
Each  has  the  merit  of  advancing  a  movement  the 
full  credit  for  which  can  be  attributed  to  no  indivi- 
dual. The  spirit  of  personal  effort  and  responsibility 
was  in  the  air  at  the  end  of  last  century  and  the 
beginning  of  this,  and  each  reformer  helped  in  its 
development.  The  value  of  their  work  will  be  the 
better  appreciated  when  we  note  that  there  was  and 


The  Dalton  Plan  167 

is  a  great  body  of  passive  resistance  against  the 
new  movement.  There  are  many  causes  combining 
to  oppose  the  development  of  the  movement  to  get 
rid  of  the  class  as  a  teaching-unit. 

No  doubt  the  most  prominent  of  these  is  the 
general  conservative  attitude  of  our  craft.  Most 
of  us  dislike  change  in  our  methods.  The  nature  of 
our  whole  training  and  our  relation  to  society  is  in 
favour  of  the  conservative  attitude.  Parents  and 
the  State  itself  do  not  like  teachers  with  much 
initiative.  No  doubt  we  are  continually  being 
urged  to  strike  out  in  new  lines  and  to  make  our 
personality  felt.  But  the  whole  vis  inertiae  of 
society  acts  in  the  contrary  direction.  Most  parents 
are  content  that  things  should  go  on  in  the  smooth 
way  to  which  they  have  become  accustomed,  and 
the  alarming  din  made  by  the  few  progressive 
parents  must  not  deafen  us  to  the  fact  that  the 
vast  mass  of  the  public  is  quite  content  to  leave 
things  as  they  are.  The  same  general  remark 
applies  to  our  profession  itself.  We  who  persist  in 
reading  all  the  new  educational  books,  and  in 
attending  educational  conferences,  are  apt  to  get  a 
false  view  of  the  attitude  of  the  great  body  of  our 
fellow-craftsmen.  Most  of  them  are  quite  content 
to  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance,  and  keep  to 
their  old  familiar  methods. 

A  second  and  a  more  specific  cause  of  the  wide- 
spread passive  resistance  to  the  rejection  of  the 
class  as  a  teaching-unit  is  to  be  found  in  the  teachers' 
love  of  class- teaching  as  such.  Many  of  us  do  not 
sufficiently  realise  the  attractiveness  of  the  vigorous 
act   of  teaching  a  class  as  compared  with  mere 


168  The  Dalton  Plan 

individual  instruction.     Among  the  many  disagree- 
able qualities  our  friends  the  psycho-analysts  find 
in  human  beings  is  the  love  of  the  limelight.     We 
shall  see,  indeed,  that  one  group  of  them  make  the 
love  of  power  and  the  display  of  power  the  most 
vital  driving  force  in  life,  and  all  of  them  proclaim 
that  we  teachers  are  in  danger  of  allowing  this 
particular  desire  to  dominate  unduly  our  professional 
life.     We  may  retaliate  by  maintaining  that  the 
desire  to  instruct  others  is  by  no  means  confined  to 
our  craft.     Do  we  not  find  lying  in  wait  for  us  in 
railway    compartments    and    other    public    places 
innumerable  lay  persons  who  are  eager  to  instruct 
us  in  all  manner  of  subjects  ?     Teachers,  for  example, 
have  no  monopoly  of  "  letters  to  the  editor,"  instruct- 
ing all  whom  it  may  concern.     But  when  all  is  said, 
there  remains  the  depressing  conviction  that  there 
is  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  the  charge  that  we  are  fond 
of  instructing  others,  particularly  when  we  get  a 
chance  of  dealing  with  them  in  the  mass.    There 
can  be  little  doubt,  as  we  have  seen,  that  we  all 
teach  too  much.     This  does  not  mean  that  we  teach 
too  many  things,  that  we  burden  our  pupils'  minds 
with  too  much  matter — though  that  charge  too  is, 
unfortunately,  sometimes  justly  made  against  us — 
but  that  we  do  too  much  actual  teaching.     We  are 
apt  to  think  that  nothing  of  itself  will  come,  but 
we    must    still    be — teaching.     Even    in    private 
coaching  we  are  inclined  to  tell  our  pupils  too  much. 
It  is  so  much  easier  and  pleasanter  to  give  our  pupil 
the  necessary  information  at  once,  instead  of  waiting 
till  he  finds  out  things  for  himself  in  response  to 
our  suggestions.     But  in  class-teaching  the  tempta- 


The  Dalton  Plan  169 

tion  is  still  more  powerful.  Accordingly,  we  need 
not  be  surprised  that  many  estimable  teachers  look 
askance  at  the  Dalton  Plan,  and  shake  their  heads 
over  a  scheme  that  removes  them  from  the  lime- 
light, and  relegates  them  to  a  place  in  the  back- 
ground, where  they  have  to  practise  self-abnegation 
in  the  interests  of  their  pupils'  self-realisation. 

A  third  reason  for  the  unpopularity  of  the  attack 
upon  class- teaching  is  a  positive  one,  and  of  a  much 
more  creditable  kind.  It  carries  the  war  into  the 
enemies'  country  and  defends  by  way  of  attack. 
Some  teachers,  while  admitting  the  truth  of  the 
various  charges  against  the  class  as  a  teaching-unit, 
argue  that  for  certain  purposes  the  collective 
method  of  teaching  is  the  only  satisfactory  one.  All 
that  has  been  already  said  about  the  two  aspects 
of  class- teaching — instruction  and  stimulation — is 
applicable  here.  We  cannot,  of  course,  keep  the 
two  aspects  quite  apart.  If  there  is  one  danger 
more  Than  another  that  we  should  continually  keep 
warning  each  other  against,  it  is  the  fallacy  of 
division  by  which  we  split  up  our  work  into  separate 
compartments.  Our  pupils  as  persons  are  one  and 
indivisible,  and  so  is  our  work.  All  the  same,  there 
is  a  radical  difference  of  treatment  according  to  the 
results  we  have  in  view.  Some  parts  of  our  work 
lay  stress  on  the  individual  needs  of  our  pupils, 
others  on  their  needs  as  members  of  society.  For 
this  reason  the  class  must  always  maintain  its 
position  as  a  potential  teaching-unit,  though  no 
doubt  this  particular  function  will  be  much  less 
exercised  than  it  has  been  in  the  past. 

Accordingly,  the  conscientious  teacher  can  still 


170  The  Dalton  Plan 

exercise  the  pleasant  function  of  class- teaching 
without  any  qualms,  knowing  that  he  is  thus  at 
once  economising  the  time  of  his  pupils  and  doing  a 
kind  of  work  that  cannot  be  so  efficiently  done  other- 
wise. So  long  as  he  has  a  sufficient  amount  of 
genuine  class- teaching  in  which  he  enjoys  all  the 
glow  of  manipulating  that  mysterious  "  sympathy 
of  numbers,"  he  will  not  grudge  the  free  hours  that 
in  the  future  may  become  universal  in  our  schools 
as  the  spirit  of  the  Dalton  Plan  makes  headway. 
He  will  soon  realise  by  actual  experience,  if  his  pro- 
fessional insight  has  not  been  keen  enough  to  warn 
him  beforehand,  that  the  free  hours  do  not  mean 
easy  periods  for  him.  Very  much  on  the  contrary, 
for  his  advice  must  be  always  "  on  tap  "  for  young 
enquirers  whose  interest  has  been  stimulated  in  the 
way  it  will  certainly  be  under  the  new  conditions. 
No  doubt  there  will  be  at  first  an  unpleasant  feeling 
of  being  at  sea,  and  removed  from  all  one's  bearings. 
There  will  arise  also  a  certain  anxiety  about  one's 
own  special  subject,  a  fear  that  it  will  be  to  some 
extent  crowded  out  by  others  that  have  greater 
inherent  or  utilitarian  attractions.  There  is  danger 
of  a  clash  of  subject-interests.  All  this  points  to  the 
need  of  a  unifying  influence  in  organising  the  appli- 
cation of  the  spirit  of  the  Dalton  Plan.  Naturally 
the  headmaster  or  mistress  is  the  final  unifying 
force,  but  the  next  in  order  is  the  house-master  or 
-mistress,  for  these  have  a  wider  range  than  the 
class-teacher  ;  and  though  they  may  also  be  specia- 
lists, their  official  status  puts  them  in  a  better 
position  than  usual  to  see  their  subjects  in  true 
perspective  in  relation  to  the  r. est  of  the  curriculum, 


The  Dalton  Plan  171 

The  need  for  such  a  moderating  force  among  the 
claims  of  the  various  subjects  is  felt  by  all  thoughtful 
teachers,  and  is  exemplified  in  the  French  movement 
we  have  described  under  the  name  of  integralism. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  just  in  so  far  as  the 
Dalton  Plan  tends  to  disrupt  the  class  it  tends 
towards  the  promotion  of  the  movement  we  have 
seen  to  be  known  in  America  as  socialisation.  This 
word  is  used  in  a  rather  peculiar  way  over  there, 
and  does  not  seem  to  be  anywhere  clearly  denned. 
An  analysis  of  the  various  ways  in  which  it  is  used 
results  in  the  separation  out  of  two  popular  mean- 
ings, one  general  and  one  special.  In  a  vague  way 
socialising  education  means  the  correlation  of 
education  with  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  bringing 
the  school  into  direct  relation  with  the  outside 
world.  Sometimes  this  is  spoken  of  as  democratising 
the  schools.  Dr.  John  Dewey's  School  and  Society 
did  much  to  promote  this  attitude,  and  a  well- 
known  educational  magazine  with  the  same  title 
is  both  effect  and  cause  of  the  wide  spread  of  this 
attitude  towards  education.  The  moment  we 
begin  to  explore  this  aspect  of  socialisation  we  get 
into  troubled  waters.  Politics  of  all  kinds,  but 
particularly  economic  questions,  at  once  claim  our 
attention  and  lead  to  acrid  discussions  that  have 
no  place  in  a  peaceable  book  like  this.  Keeping 
strictly  to  our  own  province,  the  school,  we  find 
that  the  general  aspect  of  socialisation  appears  in 
all  the  efforts  to  make  the  pupil  realise  that  he  is 
a  member  of  a  little,  more  or  less  self-governing, 
state.  On  the  disciplinary  side  we  shall  deal  with 
this  aspect  in  our  last  chapter,  and  for  the  present 


172  The  Dalton  Plan 

we  shall  keep  to  the  more  general  meaning  of  the 
term. 

To  a  reader  unaccustomed  to  American  ter- 
minology there  is  something  intriguing  in  the  title 
of  Miss  Ruth  Mary  Weeks'  Socialising  the  Three  R's. 
From  what  has  been  already  said,  it  may  be  rightly 
guessed  that  these  subjects  are  to  be  taught  in 
such  a  way  as  to  bring  out  their  connection  with 
everyday  life.     As  Miss  Weeks  puts  it : 

"  Socialism  goes  to  the  root  of  aim  and  method  ;  infuses 
into  ground  plan  and  trivial  detail  of  education  the  spirit 
of  constructive  sociology ;  and  sets  in  the  heart  of  every 
teacher'the  question  not  simply  '  How  can  I  best  teach  this 
child  to  read,  write,  and  calculate  ?  '  but  '  How  can  I  best 
fit  him  to  survive  in  the  world  we  know  and  also  to  help 
bring- to  pass  the  better  world  of  which  we  dream  ?  '  "  * 

It  is  not  difficult  for  Miss  Weeks  to  illustrate  the 
social  applications  of  the  three  R's,  and  of  such 
things  as  History,  Art,  Science,  and  Manual 
Training,  though  she  is  particularly  successful  in 
Arithmetic,  which  lends  itself  specially  to  such 
treatment,  as  Professor  T.  Percy  Nunn  has  so  well 
demonstrated  in  his  lectures  on  the  Arithmetic  of 
Citizenship. 

The  second  and  still  more  technical  meaning  of 
socialisation  brings  the  matter  into  direct  relation 
with  our  present  subject.  In  this  meaning  social- 
isation deals  with  the  study  of  a  subject  on  social 
or  co-operative  lines,  involving  a  community  of 
interest  and  of  work.  To  some  extent,  therefore, 
we    have    an    overlapping    with    the    partnership 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  6. 


The  Dalton  Plan  173 

scheme  of  Mr.  MacMunn,  but  his  scheme  lays  stress 
on  the  work,  whereas  the  socialisers  give  equal 
importance  to  the  shared  interest.  For  example, 
Miss  A.  L.  McGregor  tells  us  that : 

l 
"  The  object  of  a  socialised  lesson  in  literature  is  not  to 
test  knowledge  gained,  but  rather  to  create  a  deeper  delight 
in  the  piece  of  literature  studied  by  giving  the  pupils  a 
chance  to  talk  over  with  one  another  the  story  which 
has  now  become  a  common  possession."  1 

On  the  other  hand,  in  a  socialised  lesson  on  the  use 
of  the  dictionary,  co-operative  effort  is  as  prominent 
as  community  of  interest. 

The  Daltonians  are  just  feeling  their  way  here. 
The  problem  of  co-operative  study  is  giving  them 
great  concern.  While  carrying  on  their  studies 
according  to  their  own  plans  in  keeping  with  the 
spirit  of  the  system,  should  the  pupils  be  allowed 
or  encouraged  to  work  in  pairs  or  in  groups  ?  At 
first  it  would  appear  as  if  permission  to  work  in 
this  co-operative  way  was  really  undoing  the  work 
of  the  Plan.  Pupils  who  had  just  been  freed  from 
the  direct  control  of  their  activities  by  their 
teachers  would  be  merely  thrust  into  another  bond- 
age. But  the  cases  are  quite  different.  If  partner- 
ship is  undertaken  it  is  a  purely  voluntary  arrange- 
ment. The  pupils  will  naturally  seek  out  those 
with  whom  they  can  work  pleasantly,  and  there  is 
always  the  loophole  of  a  dissolution,  if  things  do 
not  go  satisfactorily.  Indeed,  the  partnership  may 
well  be  treated  as  a  temporary  affair,  and  in  many 
cases  could  be  established  ad  hoc,  in  order  to  get 
1  Supervised  Study  in  English,  p.  73. 


174  The  Dalton  Plan 

over  a  particularly  hard  bit  of  ground.  Naturally 
these  floating  partnerships  would  fit  in  extremely 
well  with  any  applications  of  the  Project  Method, 
for  these  we  shall  find  may  be  easily  combined  with 
the  Plan. 

One  technical  difficulty  about  co-operative  work 
is  just  its  tendency  to  become  permanent,  for  in 
this  case  there  is  the  danger  of  premature  specialisa- 
tion. If,  for  example,  in  the  preparation  of  language 
work  one  pupil  specialised  on  looking  up  the 
dictionary,  while  the  other  confined  himself  to  con- 
struing, a  piece  of  translation  might  be  completed 
in  less  time  than  if  each  did  both  parts  of  the  work. 
Indeed,  sq  economical  of  time  is  this  arrangement 
that  certain  ingenious  young  persons  in  upper 
forms  have  occasionally  adopted  it  as  a  means  to 
ease  their  labours.  The  plan,  however,  usually 
finds  little  favour  with  the  conventional  school- 
master, who  regards  it  as  an  illegitimate  way  of 
getting  at  results  with  insufficient  brain  perspiration. 
As  a  matter  of  practical  school  politics  it  ought  to  be 
welcomed  from  every  point  of  view,  since  it  gives 
just  that  purposeful  method  of  dealing  with 
practical  problems  that  is  of  most  service  in  the 
ordinary  affairs  of  life.  The  Daltonians  will  be 
well  advised  to  encourage  such  partnership  work, 
but  ought  to  make  it  a  condition  that  there  should 
be  a  regular  change  of  functions,  every  week.  It 
can  be  easily  explained  to  the  youngsters  that 
though  they  are  right  in  their  contention  that 
quicker  results  can  be  obtained  by  keeping  each  at 
the  kind  of  work  he  likes  most  and  can  do  best, 
yet  at  school  our  purpose  is  to  get  practice  in  all 


The  Dalton  Plan  175 

sorts  of  work.  It  will  not  be  hard  to  make  the 
construer  realise  that  in  real  life  he  is  not  likely 
to  find  a  dictionary  explorer  at  hand  every  time  he 
wants  to  deal  with  a  difficult  passage,  and  that, 
therefore,  he  ought  to  acquire  a  sufficient  familiarity 
with  the  turning  of  his  own  dictionary  pages.  With 
this  limitation,  the  co-operative  method  can  be 
adopted  as  forming  a  quite  consistent  part  of  the 
Dalton  Plan,  and  as  supplying  a  particularly  advan- 
tageous way  of  securing  a  wholesome  form  of 
socialisation. 

At  present  the  Dalton  Plan  is  regarded  with  the 
profoundest  suspicion  by  a  vast  number  of  teachers. 
They  see  all  manner  of  cloven  feet  in  and  around  it. 
But  in  spite  of  this  it  has  taken  a  grip  of  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  profession  that  promises  well  for  its 
development.  Oddly  enough  it  would  appear  that 
the  Plan  seems  to  be  more  popular  in  England  than 
in  America,  which  is  generally  regarded  as  its  native 
place.  We  have  seen  reason  to  believe  that  it  is 
not  specifically  American  in  origin,  as  it  has 
developed  naturally  from  tendencies  that  are  quite 
as  marked  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  as  on  the 
other.  Under  whatever  name  it  is  known  the  pro- 
gressive teacher  will  welcome  the  spirit  implicit  in 
the  Plan,  and  will  rejoice  that  an  English  Dalton 
Association  has  been  formed  and  that  it  has  now  a 
local  habitation  as  well  as  a  name.1 

But  there  is  another  side  to  all  this,  and  fortun- 
ately we  are  still  at  a  stage  when  a  warning  can  be 
given  without  offence.  In  the  development  of 
every  method  there  is  a  danger  of  rigidity.  Very 
1  35  Cornwall  Gardens,  Kensington,  London,  S.W.7. 


176  The  Dalton  Plan 

often  the  need  for  a  new  method  arises  out  of  the 
rigidity  into  which  an  old  method  has  fallen. 
Those  who  remember  the  old  Notes  of  Lessons  that 
students  in  training  had  to  prepare,  will  realise  how 
rigid  a  method  can  be,  and  will  recall  with  satis- 
faction the  relief  that  came  with  the  five  Herbartian 
Steps.  But  very  soon  preparation,  presentation, 
association,  generalisation,  and  application  became 
as  stereotyped  as  the  old  Heads,  Matter,  Method. 
The  new  classification  that  was  to  bring  freedom 
from  the  bonds  of  long  custom  gradually  developed 
chains  of  its  own.  It  is  hard  to  believe  at  the 
present  moment  that  the  Dalton  Plan  could  possibly 
develop  into  a  narrow  tyranny.  But  this  sort  of 
thing  has  happened  before  with  excellent  methods, 
and  may  quite  easily  happen  again,  unless  we  are 
on  our  guard.  Just  now  everything  is  in  a  state 
of  flux  ;  all  manner  of  experimentation  is  not  only 
permitted,  but  encouraged.  The  Plan  is  being 
adopted  in  all  degrees  of  completeness,  from  the 
whole-hearted  organisation  of  a  huge  school  like 
the  Streatham  County  Secondary  School  to  the 
timid  introduction  of  the  Plan  in  the  work  of  a 
couple  of  classes.  What  it  means  I  do  not  venture 
to  say,  but  the  fact  is  noteworthy  that  the  women 
teachers  have  shown  much  more  courage  than  the 
men  in  taking  the  plunge  into  the  Plan.  Few, 
indeed,  even  among  the  women  have  had  the 
courage  to  adopt  the  Plan,  the  whole  Plan,  and 
nothing  but  the  Plan.  But  all  who  have  dabbled 
in  it  at  all,  and  many  who  have  not,  are  looking  on 
with  interest  at  the  developments  and  are  very 
tolerant  indeed  of  each  other's  degree  of  acceptance. 


The  Dalton  Plan  177 

As  the  Plan  passes  more  and  more  into  a  techni- 
cally organised  and  officially  recognised  system  with 
a  name  terminating  in  -ism,  there  will  inevitably 
arise  an  orthodoxy  that  will  tend  to  become 
exclusive.  At  first  sight  it  may  appear  absurd  to 
suppose  that  a  system  based  on  freedom  as  its 
first  principle  should  develop  into  a  tyranny.  But 
human  nature  is  amazingly  ingenious  in  finding 
ways  of  going  wrong.  It  is  not  beyond  its  power 
to  set  about  compelling  pupils  to  be  free.  It  was  a 
wise  man  who  said  that  the  most  difficult  thing  for 
a  clever  teacher  was  to  let  his  clever  pupils  be 
clever  in  their  own  way.  But  a  sort  of  parallelo- 
gram of  forces  may  be  arranged  in  such  a  way  as  to 
ensure  against  misapplication.  By  dividing  the 
responsibilities  between  the  specialist  on  the  one 
hand  representing  the  interests  of  the  subject,  and 
the  house-master  on  the  other  representing  the 
interests  of  the  living  child,  a  permanent  interaction 
of  mutually  correcting  forces  may  be  set  up  in  such 
a  way  as  to  secure  vital  activity,  and  thus  retain  the 
school  as  an  organism  instead  of  allowing  it  to  turn 
into  a  machine. 

There  is,  however,  a  further  danger  in  quite  a 
different  direction.  Even  if  we  are  able  in  the 
way  suggested  to  secure  the  permanent  freedom  of 
the  pupil,  the  teacher  himself  is  not  out  of  danger. 
It  may  well  happen  that  in  saving  the  liberty  of 
the  pupil  the  master  may  become  himself  enslaved. 
With  an  organised  system,  it  is  quite  possible  for 
the  teacher  to  lose  his  liberty.  There  is  no  par- 
ticular need  in  the  Dalton  Plan  to  have  special 
mechanical  appliances,  but  I  have  already  seen 
12 


178  The  Dalton  Plan 

rather  elaborate  and  certainly  ingenious  mark- 
sheets  for  recording  the  progress  of  the  Daltonian 
pupil.  They  are  in  themselves  entirely  innocuous, 
and  I  have  before  me  written  evidence  of  their 
effectiveness  in  actual  practice.  But  they  are  just 
the  sort  of  thing  that  might  develop  into  an  external 
tyranny.  Their  very  name,  "  Graphs,"  has  a 
seductive  attraction  that  should  prove  a  red-lamp 
signal  of  possible  danger.  But  surely  it  is  within 
the  power  of  teachers  thus  warned  in  time  to  avoid 
the  ordinary  temptation  to  allow  an  excellent 
system  and  excellent  materials  to  turn  into  a 
tyranny.  Let  us  use  "Graphs"  or  any  other 
legitimate  means  to  improve  our  methods,  but  let 
us  see  to  it  that  we  do  not  purchase  the  freedom  of 
the  pupil  at  the  expense  of  the  freedom  of  the 
teacher. 

From  warnings  with  regard  to  future  difficulties 
we  are  sharply  recalled  to  troubles  already  existing, 
or  at  any  rate  said  to  exist.  Interested  and  not 
necessarily  hostile  teacher-critics  are  much  dis- 
turbed by  certain  considerations  that  are  worthy 
of  notice,  and  have  been  very  effectively  dealt  with 
by  Miss  Rosa  Bassett.1  The  first  of  these  is  the 
fear  that  too  much  responsibility  is  thrown  upon 
pupils  at  an  early  age.  It  is  suggested  that  the 
young  people  will  worry  over  the  distribution  of 
their  time,  especially  towards  the  end  of  the  period 
for  which  they  have  had  assignments.  But  experi- 
ence seems  to  show  that  after  the  first  period  or 
two  there  is  no  more  anxiety  under  the  new  system 
than  under  the  old.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
1  Times  Educational  Supplement  for  March  4,  1922. 


The  Dalton  Plan  179  *" 


certain  types  of  children  will  worry  about  their 
work  under  whatever  scheme  they  are  placed. 
But  the  Daltonians  maintain  that,  so  far  from 
being  increased  under  the  Plan,  this  worry  is 
diminished,  because  the  teacher  is  so  much  more 
closely  in  touch  with  the  pupil.  Justly  enough  we 
are  told  that  the  pupil  who  is  worried  about  responsi- 
bility is  the  very  person  who  needs  such  training  in 
initiative  as  the  Plan  gives.  For  myself,  I  confess 
that  I  was  among  those  who  feared  for  the  pupil  an 
excess  of  anxiety  through  the  added  responsibility, 
and  am  accordingly  glad  to  be  assured  that  "  under 
any  plan  the  heedless  child  who  neglected  her  work 
grew  worried  and  flustered  towards  the  end  of  the 
term.  Now,  there  are  fewer  who  neglect  their 
work  and  fewer  who  are  worried." 

One  recognises  the  voice  of  the  severe  disciplin- 
arian in  the  reproachful  question,  "  What  is  the 
moral  effect  of  allowing  children  to  choose  their 
occupation  at  certain  times,  when  in  after  life  they 
will  have  to  do  what  is  set  before  them  at  a  given 
time  ?  "  The  answer  will  be  given  in  some  detail 
when  dealing  with  drudgery  in  Chapter  IX,  but 
Miss  Bassett  replies  with  a  counter-attack,  and  asks 
if  the  rigid  time-table  of  class-lessons  has  produced 
such  a  nation  of  people  with  high  ideals  that  every- 
thing is  done  from  a  sense  of  duty  and  discipline. 
As  the  old  conditions  have  produced  such  poor 
results  it  is  not  unreasonable  that  we  should  give 
the  freer  Plan  a  chance.  This  is  good,  but  is  hardly 
so  strong  an  argument  as  might  be  expected.  The 
Daltonians  usually  rely  more  upon  the  positive 
elements  in  their  Plan. 


i8o  The  Dalton  Plan 

It  is  only  natural  that  those  who  remember  their 
own  schooldays  should  suggest  that  the  Plan  may 
be  regarded  as  a  boon  and  a  blessing  to  shirkers. 
But  such  critics  surely  forget  that  there  is  a 
miniature  day  of  judgment  awaiting  the  shirker  at 
the  end  of  the  assignment  period.  While  the  child 
is  certainly  thrown  upon  his  own  resources  and 
made  responsible  for  the  use  of  his  time,  the  teacher 
does  not  entirely  abdicate.  He  may  not  interfere, 
but  he  is  not  blind  :  he  keeps  an  eye  on  his  little 
flock  even  while  they  are  allowed  to  wander  about 
very  much  at  their  own  will.  But  if  at  the  end  of 
a  period  some  youngster  makes  a  serious  breakdown, 
arrangements  are  made  by  which  his  freedom  for 
the  next  period  is  curtailed,  and  if  improvement 
does  not  follow  he  is  placed  on  the  old  rigid  time- 
table conditions.  This  may  be  said  to  be  a  con- 
fession of  the  failure  of  the  Plan,  and  so  far  as  these 
unsatisfactory  pupils  are  concerned  this  must  be 
admitted.  Further,  the  proposed  way  of  meeting 
the  difficulty  does  threaten  a  serious  complication  of 
the  school  organisation.  But  the  defaulter  can  be 
made  to  do  his  time-table  work  in  the  class-room 
under  the  eye  of  the  teacher,  while  the  respectable 
pupils  are  doing  their  free  hours'  work.  This  does 
not  interfere  with  the  general  time-table  of  the 
school.  Besides,  the  Daltonians  explain  that  the 
free  privilege  is  so  much  valued  that  the  number 
who  are  willing  to  give  it  up  for  the  rigid  time-table 
is  exceedingly  small. 

It  may  be  well  to  mention  here  that  there  is  a 
certain  misunderstanding  about  freedom  in  con- 
nection with  both  the  Montessorian  system  and  the 


The  Dalton  Plan  181 

Daltonian.     The  freedom  granted  is  strictly  limited. 
The  popular  impression  is  that  in  a  Montessorian 
school  the  pupils  do  exactly  as  they  please.     But 
the  freedom  applies  only  to  the  school  work.     The 
pupil  may  work  or  idle,  just  as  he  likes.     No  pressure 
is  put  upon  him.     Further,  he  may  work  at  what- 
ever subject  he  feels  inclined  for  at  the  time.     He 
can  select  whatever  piece  of  apparatus  strikes  his 
fancy.     But  he  must  use  that  piece  of  apparatus 
for  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  intended.     He  must 
not  play  bowls  with  the  cylinders.     Further,  he 
must  do  nothing  to  interfere  with  the  comfort  of 
his  fellows.     Besides,   he  cannot  leave  school  at 
will.     He  may  lie  on  his  back  for  twenty  minutes 
doing  nothing  but  gaze  at  the  ceiling,  and  nobody 
will   interfere.     But   if   he   suggests   going   home, 
objections  are  raised.     It  could  not  have  been  an 
orthodox    Montessori    school     about    which    the 
mothers  complained  that  their  children  came  strol- 
ling home  whenever  the  fancy  took  them.     So  with 
the  Dalton  Plan.     A  reasonable  amount  of  super- 
vision is  exercised  by  the  teachers,  though  there 
must  always  be  left  a  substantial  amount  of  genuine 
freedom  to  the  pupils,  or  the  Plan  is  a  failure.     It 
is  the  mark  of  the  capable  teacher  that  he  is  able 
to  find  the  just  mean  between  freedom  and  licence. 
Generally  speaking,  the  Daltonians  are  optimistic, 
a  quality  which  they  share  with  the  Montessorians. 
It  is  inspiriting  to  read  Miss  Bassett's  remark  : 
"  Let  all  teachers  realise  that  children  want  to 
learn."     Some  teachers  have  their  doubts  on  this 
subject,   and  perhaps  they  are  justified  by  their 
experience.     But  if    Miss  Bassett  is  justified  by 


182  The  Dalton  Plan 

hers,  it  means  that  under  proper  conditions  children 
do  want  to  learn.  It  may  be  that  those  conditions 
are  not  very  pleasant  for  the  pupils,  as  is  illustrated 
by  the  advice  given  by  a  successful  headmaster  to 
a  new  and  inexperienced  assistant  master  in  Ian 
Hay's  The  Lighter  Side  of  School  Life  : 

"  There  is  only  one  way  to  teach  boys.  Keep  them  in 
order :  don't  let  them  play  the  fool  or  go  to  sleep  :  and  they 
will  be  so  bored  that  they  will  work  like  niggers  merely 
to  pass  the  time.  That's  education  in  a  nutshell.  Good 
night  1  "  » 

Dr.  Montessori  is  equally  confident  in  the  power 
of  ennui  to  drive  pupils  to  work,  though  she  does 
not  put  the  matter  so  brutally  as  the  theory- 
despising  headmaster.  She  maintains  that  sooner 
or  later  the  child  will  begin  to  attend  to  something 
or  other,  and  she  has  almost  infinite  patience  in 
waiting  for  this  attention.  However,  the  directress 
must  be  on  the  alert  to  take  full  advantage  of  the 
attention  when  it  comes,  and  in  the  meantime  to 
take  every  precaution  that  no  outside  matter  of 
sharper  interest  shall  be  allowed  to  intervene.  The 
child  must  attend  to  something,  it  is  true,  but  the 
teacher  must  see  that  he  attends  to  the  right  sort 
of  thing. 

While  the  Daltonians  are  optimistic,  they  do  not 
shut  their  eyes  to  the  difficulties  of  the  situation, 
and  one  of  the  most  prominent  of  these  is  the 
nature  of  our  present  text-books.  They  are  not 
written  in  such  a  way  as  to  suit  the  requirements  of 
the  Plan.  Text-books,  in  fact,  fall  into  two  great 
1  Op.cit.,-p.6^. 


The  Dalton  Plan  183 

grcups — those  that  are  prepared  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  subject-matter,  and  those  prepared  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  pupil.  They  may  be  named, 
if  we  like,  the  logical  and  the  psychological  type. 
The  former  is  much  the  larger  class.  The  author 
takes  a  wide  view  of  the  whole  subject  and  asks 
himself  how  he  can  arrange  in  satisfactory  order 
all  the  matter  required  for  the  particular  stage  he 
has  in  view.  The  pupil  is  often  considered  to  the 
extent  that  the  vocabulary  is  kept  within  his  reach, 
but  no  greater  concession  is  usually  made.  The 
books  are  written  on  the  understanding  that  they 
are  to  be  taught  rather  than  that  they  are  to  form 
the  material  for  learning.  An  extreme  set  of  books 
on  the  psychological  side  is  formed  by  what  are 
sometimes  called  self-educators.  Here  the  teacher 
is  deliberately  excluded,  and  the  writer  addresses 
himself  directly  to  the  pupil.  Such  books  are 
written  largely  in  a  friendly,  personal  style,  the 
writer  making  a  very  free  use  of  you.  The  orthodox 
text-book  is  severely  third  personal,  but  there  has 
grown  up  an  intermediate  group  in  which  the 
author  does  recognise  the  existence  of  the  pupil  as 
a  person,  and  occasionally  addresses  him. 

Some  of  these  books  make  fair  material  for  the 
Plan  :  but  what  is  wanted  is  a  series  written 
expressly  from  the  Daltonian  standpoint.  The 
matter  should  be  arranged  continuously,  yet 
supplied  with  breaks  at  reasonable  intervals,  and 
there  ought  to  be  periodical  big  breaks,  that  might 
reasonably  correspond  to  the  monthly,  three- 
weekly,  or  other  fixed  period  adopted  by'the  school. 
In  one  respect  there  is  no  difficulty  in  getting  such 


184  The  Dalton  Plan 

a  series  put  on  the  market.  Educational  publishers 
are  very  keen,  and  are  only  too  willing  to  produce 
what  the  teachers  want.  But  the  difficulty  is 
generally,  and  here  specially,  to  discover  what  the 
teachers  really  do  want.  They  do  not  themselves 
know,  but  are  gradually  feeling  their  way.  It  is 
obviously  some  sort  of  compromise  between  the 
logical  and  the  psychological  type  of  book  that  is 
required.  Whether  it  should  be  a  mere  outline 
with  full  references  to  books  available  in  the  school 
library,  or  a  full  treatment  of  the  subject  in  a  book 
that  is  self-contained,  is  yet  to  be  determined.  In 
all  probability  much  experimenting  is  still  necessary 
before  the  proper  type  is  evolved.  In  the  mean- 
time a  good  deal  of  work  will  probably  be  done 
by  guided  reading  in  class  libraries,  which,  however, 
will  have  to  be  greatly  enlarged.  The  necessity  for 
each  pupil  in  a  class  having  a  separate  text-book 
is  no  longer  to  be  taken  for  granted.  The  possi- 
bilities of  socialisation  and  partnership-work  open 
out  new  problems,  the  solution  of  which  will  keep 
our  live  teachers  happily  and  usefully  occupied  for 
several  decades. 


CHAPTER   VIII 
THE   GARY    CONTRIBUTION 

THE  architectural  element  is  probably  too  grand 
a  way  of  naming  the  influence  brought  to 
bear  upon  education  by  the  manipulation  of  stone 
and  lime.     Edward  Thring,  with  his  usual  insight, 
made  much  of  "  the  mighty  wall,"  and  the  teachers 
under  the  London  County  Council  had  an  unforget- 
table illustration  of  the  influence  of  building  con- 
struction when  they  found  how  long  it  took  for  the 
Authority  to  work  off  the  old  schools  in  which  the 
class-rooms  were  built  on  the  sixty-pupil   basis. 
Stone  and  lime  have  a  peculiar  charm  for  educa- 
tional  administrative   authorities.     A   building   is 
something  you  can  see  and  boast  about,  whereas  a 
teacher  is  a  mere  passing  shade.     So  there  is  always 
the  danger  of  bricks  and  mortar  subtending  a  bigger 
angle  in  public  estimation  than  the  flesh  and  blood 
of  the  school  staffs.     Everybody  who  is  interested 
in  education  wants  to  have  as  good  buildings  as 
possible,  and  no  teacher  will  object  to  be  housed 
in  what  the  economists  persistently  nickname  a 
M  palace,"  so  long  as  the  personal  remuneration  is 
in  keeping.    At  present,  however,  we  are  concerned 
more   about   the   influence   that   school   buildings 
exercise  upon  the  organisation  of  school  work. 
In  the  examinations  of  students  in  training  to  be 
185 


1 86  The  Gary  Contribution 

teachers  it  used  to  be  common  to  set  questions 
about  the  structure  of  schools,  and  the  architectural 
details  of  school  buildings.  But  this  has  become 
more  or  less  obsolete,  no  doubt  for  the  reason  that 
it  is  realised  that  these  matters  are  not  within  the 
province  of  the  practical  teacher.  Formerly  it  was 
taken  for  granted  that  the  teacher  took  the  whole 
of  the  school  world  for  his  province,  including  the 
structure  within  which  he  did  his  work.  With  the 
increasing  division  of  labour,  school  architecture 
found  its  place  among  matters  that  can  be  relegated 
to  outsiders  who  know  nothing  about  the  details  of 
school  management.  The  planning  of  schools  is 
now  left  to  architects  who  have  specialised  in  that 
branch,  so  that  the  ordinary  teacher  has  to  regard 
the  school-building  and  the  class-room  in  which  he 
teaches  as  part  of  the  data  of  his  professional 
problem. 

All  the  more  important,  therefore,  is  the  lesson 
that  we  have  to  learn  from  an  educational  experi- 
ment that  has  made  a  great  stir  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic.  There  is  a  town — the  Americans  prefer 
to  call  it  a  city,  since  it  has  somewhere  about 
50,000  inhabitants — built  on  the  sand  dunes  at  the 
southern  point  of  Lake  Michigan,  in  the  State  of 
Indiana.  It  is  a  mushroom  town,  and  need  not 
trouble  about  its  jubilee  celebrations  for  some 
thirty-odd  years  yet.  It  was  deliberately  planted 
where  it  is  by  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation 
for  the  corporation's  own  ends.  It  has  developed 
for  itself  an  educational  system  of  some  originality. 
The  school  organisation  began  in  September  1906, 
opening,  we  are  told,  "  with  one  teacher  occupying 


The  Gary  Contribution  187 

a  one-room  building.' '  But  the  gods  were  kind  to 
Gary,  and  sent  along  in  the  following  July  a  certain 
William  A.  Wirt,  who  gave  his  mind  to  his  work  as 
Superintendent  of  Schools.  He  is  a  man  of  ideas, 
of  "  poetic  insight "  as  some  of  his  admirers  tell 
us.  In  any  case  he  set  about  his  work  with  such 
vigour  and  initiative  that  his  town  soon  came  to 
be  the  most-talked-of  place  among  all  the  educational 
centres  in  America.  From  some  points  of  view  he 
had  a  most  unsuitable  site  for  his  educational  organ- 
isation. In  the  midst  of  an  industrial  area  peopled 
to  the  extent  of  two-thirds  by  folk  who  were  either 
foreign-born  or  of  full  foreign  parentage,  he  had 
little  encouragement  to  start  an  educational  crusade. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  had  no  tradition  to  fight  down  ; 
for  we  can  assume  that  the  solitary  teacher  in  the 
single  room  did  not  present  an  overwhelming  resist- 
ance. It  is  not  given  to  every  man  of  originality  to 
develop  his  schemes  in  such  a  way  as  to  call  for  a 
specific  name  for  his  work.  The  very  fact  that 
people  interested  in  education  now  talk  easily 
about  "  the  Gary  System  "  means  much  ;  but  the 
fact  that  it  is  frequently  referred  to  as  "  the  so-called 
Gary  System  "  means  more.  A  system  is  well  on 
its  way  to  wide  influence  when  it  attains  to  the 
adjective  so-called. 

Out  of  the  volumes  that  have  been  written 
on  the  subject  it  would  appear  to  be  hopeless  to 
select  any  one  principle  and  maintain  that  in  it  is 
to  be  found  the  quintessence  of  the  system.  But 
we  shall  not  go  far  wrong  if  we  seek  the  root  idea  of 
the  whole  development  in  Mr.  Wirt's  attack  on  a 
view  based  upon  a  detail  of  school  architecture. 


188  The  Gary  Contribution 

His  scheme  is  sometimes  called  one  of  duplication, 

and  his  schools  have  been  called  "  duplicate  "  schools. 

The  terms  are  somewhat  misleading,  and  the  subject 

can  be  better  approached  from  the  human  side  in 

Mr.    Wirt's   challenge   of  the   widespread   opinion 

that  all  schools  should  provide  a  seat  and  a  desk 

for  every  pupil.     There  is  something  very  attractive 

in  the  schoolman's  perversion  of  a  well-known  saying: 

"  A  place  for  every  pupil,  and  every  pupil  in  his 

place."     At  this  maxim  of  pedagogic  tidiness  Mr. 

Wirt  tilted  with  all  his  might,  maintaining  that  there 

is  no  more  need  for  a  separate  seat  in  school  for 

every  individual  pupil  than  there  is  for  a  separate 

seat  in  the  public  park  for  every  individual  citizen. 

When  the  pupils  were  engaged  in  playing,  or  in 

physical  exercises,  or  in  the  workshop,  or  in  the 

library,   their  class-rooms  were  empty ;    and  Mr. 

Wirt,  like  Nature,  abhors  a  vacuum,  and,  like  Nature, 

at  once  proceeded  to  fill  one  when  he  found  it.     His 

plan  was  the  very  simple  one  of  providing  class-room 

accommodation  for  only  half  the  number  of  pupils 

attending  a  school.     He  calculated  that,  roughly 

speaking,  each  pupil  should  spend  only  about  half 

his  time  in  class- work.     To  give  effect  to  this  scheme 

all  that  seemed  necessary  was  to  count  each  school 

as  available  for  double  the  number  of  pupils  for 

whom  it  was  originally  intended,  and  we  can  easily 

picture  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the  education 

authorities  in  an  expanding  town  would  welcome 

a   superintendent   bringing   such   a   money-saving 

proposition.     But  Mr.  Wirt  realised  that  to  give  his 

scheme  fair  play  it  was  necessary  that  what  may  be 

called  the  public  parts  of  a  school  should  be  increased 


The  Gary  Contribution  189 

and  improved,  if  they  were  to  account  satisfactorily 
for  half  the  school  time  of  the  pupils.  The  new 
scheme,  in  fact,  demanded  a  school  specially  built 
for  it.  Accordingly,  Mr.  Wirt  calculated  what  an 
ordinary  school  in  Gary  would  cost  in  order  to 
accommodate  a  certain  number  of  pupils,  and  then 
asked  his  committee  to  provide  a  sum  just  a  little 
less  than  that,  and  to  allow  him  to  build  the  school 
in  his  own  way.  Since  his  scheme  involved  a  slight 
saving,  whereas  nearly  every  educational  innovation 
involves  an  increased  expenditure,  he  was  allowed 
to  proceed.  The  result  was  a  school  with  about 
half  the  usual  class-room  accommodation  for  the 
number  of  pupils  on  the  roll,  but  with  a  specially 
large  and  attractive  suite  of  rooms  for  general 
purposes.  The  playgrounds  were  more  than  usually 
extensive  and  well- equipped  ;  there  was  a  swimming- 
bath,  a  conservatory,  work-rooms,  libraries,  recrea- 
tion-rooms, laboratories,  art-rooms.  Other  schools 
followed  with  ever- increasing  elaboration  of  the 
general  and  social  accommodation,  till  the  most 
recent  buildings  must  be  regarded  as  something 
approaching  very  closely  to  the  ideal. 

Without  doubt  Mr.  Wirt  did  his  best  to  keep  down 
expenses  in  carrying  on  his  gradually  elaborating 
schemes,  but  it  would  be  against  all  human  ex- 
perience if  his  outlays  could  be  kept  within  the 
limits  of  his  estimates,  so  it  is  likely  that  he  looked 
about  deliberately  to  find  fresh  justifications  of  his 
expenditure.  Fortunately,  he  found  them  without 
having  to  go  too  far  afield  :  in  fact,  they  developed 
out  of  his  educational  plans.  His  abhorrence  of  a 
vacuum  did  not  die  down  the  moment  the  school 


190  The  Gary  Contribution 

hours  were  past.  He  was  hungering  to  fill  up 
the  schools  all  the  time.  The  more  his  fine  and 
expensive  buildings  were  occupied,  the  less  his  Board 
could  find  fault  with  their  cost.  Arrangements 
were  made  by  which  parents  could  utilise  in  the 
evenings  some  of  the  recreation  and  other  public 
rooms  of  the  schools,  so  that  the  community  might 
have  the  feeling  that  it  was  directly  benefiting  by 
the  improved  accommodation  provided  for  the 
youngsters.  But  Mr.  Wirt  was  not  content  with  this 
indirect  utilisation;  he  wanted  the  buildings  to  be 
occupied  for  longer  periods  by  their  legitimate 
tenants,  the  children  themselves.  Accordingly,  the 
school  day  was  gradually  lengthened,  and  additional 
work  was  put  on  at  various  out-of-regular  school- 
hours,  and  days,  till  at  last  an  admiring  critic  was 
able  to  write :  "  The  schools  are  in  session  twelve 
months  a  year,  and  for  seven  days  a  week  for  certain 
features,  six  days  a  week  for  all  features."  *  After 
the  cold  shiver  this  alarming  announcement  must 
have  caused  the  enquiring  teacher,  he  will  be 
anxious  to  know  how  this  never-ending  chain  of 
activity  is  organised. 

From  the  lowest  grades  the  Gary  schools  are  worked 
on  what  the  Americans  call  the  departmental  system, 
which  corresponds  to  what  is  known  in  England  as 
the  specialist  system.  The  pupils  pass  from  room  to 
room  according  to  the  subject  they  have  to  study  at 
any  particular  time.  In  other  words,  children  of  the 
tenderest  years  haveto  carry  on  their  work  on  exactly 
the  same  principle  that  is  applied  in  our  newer 
English  universities.  But  objectors  must  remember 
1  Henry  S.  Curtis,  Education  through  Play,  p.  167. 


The  Gary  Contribution  191 

that  Mr.  Wirt  is  dealing  with  American  children, 
and  American  children  are  accustomed  to  have 
responsibility  thrust  upon  them  at  a  much  earlier 
age  than  ours.  Still,  even  young  Americans  cannot 
be  expected  to  take  full  responsibility  for  their  own 
education.  Their  course  of  study  is  determined  in 
consultation  with  responsible  teachers,  though  to 
the  child  himself  is  left  the  carrying  out  of  the  pro- 
gramme agreed  upon.  The  departmental  system  is 
by  no  means  a  new  thing  in  America,  and  the  special 
contribution  Gary  makes  here  is  the  wholesale  way 
in  which  it  is  applied.  Before  Mr.  Wirt's  time  the 
junior  parts  of  schools  were  not  departmentalised. 

The  grip  that  the  Gary  system  takes  upon  the 
life  of  the  pupil  is  indicated  by  the  somewhat  clumsy 
compound  adjective  often  applied  to  schools  con- 
ducted on  these  lines.  When  it  is  said  that  they 
are  "  work- play-study  "  schools,  it  is  claimed  that 
they  make  provision  for  all  the  activities  that  are 
usually  called  work,  all  those  that  expend  themselves 
in  recreation,  and  all  those  that  are  devoted  to 
intellectual  pursuits  of  every  sort.  The  school  thus 
takes  possession  of  the  whole  life  of  the  pupil,  and 
to  that  extent  usurps  the  place  of  the  home.  To 
compensate  for  this  there  is  the  tendency  to  bring 
the  home  closer  to  the  school  by  affording  oppor- 
tunities for  the  parents  to  utilise  the  school  buildings. 

It  would  be  perhaps  too  much  to  say  that  the 
system  has  a  communistic  basis,  but  it  certainly 
suggests  communistic  ideals.  Its  promoters  would 
rather  express  its  aim  as  a  training  in  citizenship, 
and  they  maintain  that  this  training  demands  some 
sort  of  communal  work.     But  the  community  is 


192  The  Gary  Contribution 

not  limited  to  the  school :  the  unit  is  the  town  : 
the  work  of  the  school  may  be  brought  into  touch 
with  the  ordinary  life  of  the  citizens,  and  much 
ingenuity  appears  to  be  expended  in  bringing  about 
contacts.  Thus  some  years  ago  we  were  informed 
in  an  article  in  The  New  Republic  that  the  city  analyst 
at  Gary  was  also  a  teacher  of  chemistry  in  the  schools, 
and  that  some  at  least  of  the  necessary  routine 
analyses  were  made  in  the  school  laboratories,  by 
the  pupils.  Thus  the  regular  periodical  analyses 
of  the  town  water  were  made  by  the  pupils,  and  the 
purity  of  the  various  candies  sold  in  the  town  was 
guaranteed  by  making  the  school  pupils  responsible 
for  the  necessary  tests.  It  is  hard  to  say  how  far 
this  educational  realism  may  go,  but  it  certainly 
gives  us  material  for  serious  reflection. 

The  American  teachers  have  shown  themselves 
on  the  whole  suspicious  of  the  system  :  it  is  not 
hard  to  see  why.  They  were  at  first  inclined  to 
believe  that  the  underlying  motive  for  its  adoption 
was  the  saving  of  money  to  the  ratepayers — that 
it  was,  in  fact,  a  cheap  substitute  for  the  ordinary 
arrangement.  But  there  was  further  the  grim 
prospect  of  a  school  always  in  session,  summer  and 
winter,  spring  and  autumn,  week-day  and  Sunday, 
morning,  noon,  and  night.  Even  with  the  layman 
the  imagination  reels  at  this  prospect  of  ceaseless 
education,  while  to  the  teacher  is  the  added  horror 
that  he  himself  is  necessarily  a  permanent  performer 
on  this  never-stopping  treadmill.  But  closer  in- 
vestigation hardly  seems  to  bear  out  the  description 
of  the  enthusiastic  critic  we  have  quoted,  and  the 
official  account  of  the  system  gives  a  more  reassuring 


The  Gary  Contribution  193 

statement  of  the  facts  of  the  case.     This  account 
itself,  published  in  eight *  separate  but  not  very 
large  volumes,  is  the  outcome  of  the  steady  stream 
of  adverse  criticism  that  was  for  long  directed  at 
the  system.     The  Board  of  Education  and  the  City 
Superintendent  of  Gary  asked  the  General  Educa- 
tion Board  to  make  a  study  of  the  Gary  schools  in 
order  to  have  them  put  to  the  test  of  independent 
investigation.     In  the  General  Account  that  forms 
the  first  volume  of  the  series  we  are  told  that  the 
average  school  day  in  American  cities  over  100,000 
is  five  hours,  while  in  cities  from  25,000  to  50,000, 
among  which  Gary  ranks,  the  day  is  five  and  a 
quarter  hours.     Referring  to  the  three  big  typical 
Gary  schools,  the  Account  tells  us  : 

"  The  official  school  day  at  Gary  is  for  children  seven 
hours — from  8.15  to  4.15,  with  sixty  minutes  for  luncheon. 
The  lengthened  school  day  provides  the  additional  time 
needed  for  the  special  branches.  Meanwhile  the  common 
branches  continue  on  the  whole  to  receive  as  much  time  at 
Gary  as  elsewhere.  Fifty  representative  cities  average  5,388 
hours  of  instruction  in  the  ordinary  studies  as  compared 
with  5,048  at  Gary,  a  total  difference  of  340  hours  spread 
over  eight  years.  The  three  R's  are  allotted  3,904,  as 
against  4,022  in  fifty  cities .  Gary's  departure  is  thus  almost 
wholly  in  the  field  of  the  special  activities  ;  the  2,732 
hours  gained  by  lengthening  the  school  day  keep  the 
children  off  the  streets  and  make  time  for  physical  training, 
shop  work,  drawing,  and  the  auditorium."  2 

1  The  titles  of  the  volumes  are  as  follow :  The  Gary 
Schools,  a  General  Account  ;  Organisation  and  Administra- 
tion ;  Costs  ;  Industrial  Work  ;  Household  Arts  ;  Physical 
Training  and  Play  ;  Science  Teaching  ;  Measurement  of 
Class-room  Products. 

2  Op.  cit.,  p.  58. 

13 


194  The  Gary  Contribution 

Mr.  Henry  S.  Curtis,  looking  at  the  matter 
entirely  from  the  pupils'  point  of  view,  cordially 
approves  of  the  lengthened  school  day, 

"  because  the  extra  hours  have  been  taken  from  the  idle- 
ness and  '  the  street  and  alley  time  '  of  the  children.  It 
has  thus  removed  the  chief  source  of  dissipation  and  vice, 
and  given  a  great  positive  advantage  at  the  same  time."  * 

All  this  is  in  itself  very  satisfactory,  but  it  leaves 
teachers  uneasy.  An  increase  of  nearly  two  hours 
a  day  is  a  serious  matter,  unless  there  are  compen- 
sations. The  Account  tells  us  that  we  should 
remember  that  where  there  is  a  short  school  day  the 
teachers  are  expected  to  give  time  after  school  to 
records,  reports,  and  outside  duties,  making  up  in 
all  a  six-hour  day.  But  when  we  have  remembered 
this  we  do  not  forget  that  there  is  still  an  absolute 
increase  of  one  hour,  and  would  point  out  that 
there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  seven-hour 
day  would  not  be  accompanied  by  the  same,  or 
even  a  slightly  increased,  amount  of  out-of-hours 
duties.  Teachers  will  read  with  much  more  satis- 
faction what  the  A  ccount  has  to  say  under  the  head 
of  Teaching  Staff : 

"  There  is,  however,  no  reason  why  the  school  building 
and  the  pupil  should  not  have  longer  hours  without  equally 
increasing  the  length  of  the  teacher's  day.  In  fact,  one 
advantage  of  the  Gary  organisation  is  that  the  day  for  the 
building  may  be  one  thing,  that  for  the  pupils  another,  and 
that  for  teachers  still  another.  Indeed,  the  teacher's 
day  can  be  made  of  any  length  whatsoever,  though  of  course 
the  shorter  the  teacher's  day  the  more  teachers  are  required, 

1  Education  through  Play,  p.  174. 


The  Gary  Contribution  195 

and  hence  the  larger  the  budget  for  teachers'  salaries,  or 
the  smaller  the  salary  per  teacher."  1 

Despite  the  "  decided  movement  throughout  the 
country,  notably  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey, 
toward  lengthening  the  school  days  in  cities,"  and 
the  corresponding  tendency  we  have  noted  in 
England,  the  teachers  can  console  themselves  by 
remembering  that  there  are  such  things  as  working 
by  shifts  :  that  there  is  the  possibility  of  a  maximum 
number  of  hours  per  day,  and  a  maximum  number 
of  weeks  per  year — though  this  last  does  not  appeal 
so  strongly  to  American  teachers,  who  are  paid  by 
the  month,  and  thus  not  automatically  paid  during 
holidays  as  we  are.  Within  this  maximum  it  is 
quite  possible  to  have  a  much  wider  choice  in  the 
distribution  of  working  time  than  is  at  present 
available  under  our  cast-iron  system  from  some- 
where round  about  nine  o'clock  a.m.  to  somewhere 
round  about  four  o'clock  p.m.  What  appears  to 
threaten  an  intolerable  oppression  may  be  the 
means  of  bringing  increased  freedom.  If  in  England 
the  tendency  develops,  and  it  becomes  a  matter  of 
practical  politics  to  increase  the  school  day  in  such 
a  way  as  to  have  all  the  school  work  done  on  the 
premises  and  let  the  children  leave  for  home  quite 
free  from  further  scholastic  preoccupation,  it  will 
be  wise  for  the  teachers  to  encourage  the  sort  of 
extension  that  the  Gary  system  seems  to  favour ; 
for  in  this  way  it  will  be  possible  to  meet  the 
demands  of  parents  and  the  needs  of  the  pupils, 
without  overworking  the  individual  teacher. 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  72. 


196  The  Gary  Contribution 

It  goes  without  saying  that  an  extension  of  the 
school  day  would  result  in  greater  freedom  of  choice 
for  the  pupil.  Under  our  present  arrangements 
the  rigid  school  hours  make  it  imperative  that  the 
pupils  should  all  be  occupied  at  the  same  times. 
Any  demands,  social  or  industrial,  made  upon  the 
pupil's  time  during  school  hours  can  be  met  only 
by  directly  interfering  with  school  work.  One  of 
the  chief  difficulties  we  shall  have  to  face,  when 
the  part-time  work  for  pupils  between  14  and  18 
comes  into  operation,  will  be  the  fitting  in  of  school 
and  work  time.  With  a  more  or  less  continuous 
set  of  lessons  on  the  Departmental  plan  it  would 
be  possible  to  get  in  the  school  work  of  the  "  young 
persons  "  without  unduly  interfering  with  vocational 
duties.  There  could  be  morning  courses,  midday 
courses,  afternoon  courses,  and,  more  doubtfully, 
evening  courses.  In  this  way  the  young  persons 
could  fit  themselves  in  with  comparative  ease  at 
various  points  where  they  could  get  most  benefit 
from  the  instruction  actually  going  on,  and  thus 
minimise  interference  with  their  duties  at  the  work- 
shop, the  factory,  the  warehouse,  or  the  counting- 
house.  Naturally  the  time-tables  in  such  schools 
would  become  very  complicated,  but  there  is  no 
reason  why  they  should  be  unworkable.  The  late 
H.  W.  Eve,  when  Headmaster  of  University  College 
School,  London,  used  to  remark  with  satisfaction 
that  practically  every  one  of  his  five  hundred  boys 
had  a  time-table  different  from  that  of  his  fellows. 
Yet  the  school  was  well  organised  and  worked 
smoothly. 

Naturally  there  would  need  to  be  a  group  of 


The  Gary  Contribution  197 

teachers  of  a  new  type,  corresponding  somewhat 
to  the  deans  in  the  universities.  It  would  be  their 
duty  at  the  beginning  of  each  term  to  fix  the  par- 
ticular subjects  and  grades  that  would  meet  the 
need  of  each  pupil.  It  would  be  the  business  of 
this  new  class  of  directing  teachers  to  mediate 
between  the  pupils  and  the  specialists.  Adult 
pupils  may  be  left  to  fight  their  own  battles  with 
their  specialist  instructors,  but  children  require  to 
be  not  only  guided  in  their  choice  of  subjects  but 
supervised  in  carrying  them  on.  The  experts  who 
looked  into  the  affairs  of  the  Gary  schools  indicate 
that  this  is  a  line  of  weakness  at  present.  It  is  not 
inherent  in  the  system,  but  it  is  one  of  the  dangers 
to  be  guarded  against  in  its  application.  The 
allocation  of  the  work  was  all  right,  and  the  arrange- 
ments for  supervision  were  in  themselves  excellent, 
but  were  not  applied  as  they  ought  to  have  been. 
Pupils  changed  about  from  class  to  class  during 
term,  in  the  independent  way  American  children 
have,  without  consulting  the  responsible  teachers. 
The  pupil's  programme-card  states  quite  precisely 
"  No  dropping  of  class  nor  change  of  programme 
will  be  permitted  without  the  written  consent  of  the 
assistant  superintendent."  A  very  little  office 
work  would  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  the  young 
people  to  take  the  law  into  their  own  hands  in  the 
way  they  appear  to  have  done. 

Perhaps  the  dean  type  of  supervising  teacher  is 
not  sufficiently  prominent  in  the  Gary  scheme  as 
at  present  applied,  but  in  the  nature  of  things  his 
function  is  essential  to  the  successful  working  of 
the  new  plans.     Each  dean  would  have  a  definite 


198  The  Gary  Contribution 

number  of  pupils  assigned  to  him,  and  his  primary 
duty  throughout  the  year  would  be  to  see  that  each 
of  them  conducted  his  studies  according  to  plan. 
A  reference  to  present  practice  is  always  reassuring 
to  English  teachers,  and  it  will  not  fail  to  occur  to 
them  that  this  apparently  new  official  is  merely  a 
development  of  the  titular  form-master  who  is  at 
present  a  feature  of  our  secondary  schools.  He 
originates  from  the  need  of  making  specialism  in 
schools  workable.  Specialists  from  the  very  nature 
of  the  case  have  a  tendency  to  pay  undue  attention 
to  the  subject-matter  at  the  expense  of  the  pupil 
as  a  human  being.  As  a  result  of  the  system,  the 
specialist  has  to  deal  in  the  course  of  the  school 
week  with  a  vastly  greater  number  of  individual 
boys  than  the  old-fashioned  form-master.  In- 
evitably, therefore,  he  has  less  knowledge  of  and 
interest  in  individual  boys  than  was  the  case  under 
the  old  system.  To  obviate  this  defect  the  natural 
device  has  been  adopted  of  supplying  each  form 
with  a  titular  master  whose  business  it  is  to  look 
after  the  pupils  in  that  form  from  the  human  stand- 
point. He  is  to  be  their  father  confessor,  to  be 
responsible  for  them  to  the  outer  school  world,  and 
to  defend  them  where  defence  is  possible  and 
desirable.  It  is  generally  contrived  that  this  form- 
master  teaches  one  subject  with  his  form,  usually 
Scripture  or  English,  but  even  if  he  does  not  teach 
them  at  all  he  still  binds  them  together  into  a  sort 
of  schematic  "  form."  He  represents  their  cor- 
porate existence,  he  gathers  up  in  himself  the 
collective  personality  of  the  group.  He  may  be  a 
specialist  to  others,  but  to  his  form  he  is  merely  a 


The  Gary  Contribution  199 

master  whose  specialty  is  boys.  He  has  been 
known  to  call  himself  a  specialist  "  in  Mathematics 
and  in  Form  IV."  As  things  develop,  it  is  not 
unlikely  that  mathematics  will  fall  more  and  more 
into  the  background,  and  Form  IV  move  more  and 
more  into  the  limelight  of  his  attention. 

It  will  not  have  escaped  the  reader's  notice  that 
we  are  here  gradually  approaching  from  a  new 
starting-point  one  of  the  developments  of  the 
Dalton  Plan.  These  new  teacher-deans  or  titular 
form-masters  would  fit  very  well  into  the  functions 
of  the  house-master  or  -mistress  as  these  offices 
are  developing  in  the  Dalton  Plan.  The  stone  and 
lime  arrangements  suggested  by  Mr.  Wirt  fulfil 
admirably  the  requirements  of  the  Dalton  Plan, 
and  the  fact  of  this  convergence  is  an  argument  the 
more  that  the  Daltonians  are  on  the  right  tack. 

One  disquieting  feature  of  the  report  that  the 
experts  made  on  the  working  of  the  Gary  system 
is  that  they  do  not  find  that  in  the  ordinary  school 
subjects  the  schools  quite  hold  their  own  with  the 
other  schools  in  the  country.  They  have  emphati- 
cally succeeded  in  their  special  aims,  but  somehow 
they  do  not  appear  to  have  got  on  so  well  with 
plain  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic.  To  quote 
the  report : 

"  It  must  be  recognised  that  no  educational  system  can 
be  considered  to  have  completely  established  itself  until, 
whatever  else  it  achieves,  it  has  also  secured  the  fundamental 
educational  values  represented  by  the  essential  tools  of 
learning.  The  results  of  testing  the  Gary  schools  do  not 
invalidate  the  effort  to  socialise  education,  but  it  is  evident 
that  the  Gary  experiment  has  not  yet  successfully  solved 


200  The  Gary  Contribution 

the  problems  involved  in  the  socialisation  of  education,  in 
so  far  as  efficient  instruction  in  the  necessary  common  school 
branches  is  concerned."  x 

But  the  sympathetic  observer  need  not  be  greatly 
troubled  about  this  lapse.     There  are  many  explana- 
tions besides  the  intrinsic  qualities  of  the  system. 
There  is  first  the  preponderantly  foreign  nature  of 
the  population  :    the  majority,  as  we  have  noted, 
being  either  foreign-born  or  of  full  foreign  parentage 
on  both  sides.     Next  there  is  that  lack  of  effective 
supervision  that  is  not  an  inherent  defect  in  the 
system  and  yet  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  just 
such  a  weakness  as  has  been  noticed.     The  experts 
report  that  "  the  quality  of  class-room  instruction 
at  Gary  falls  short  of  what  is  necessary/'  but  in 
another  part  of  their  report  they  give  the  reason. 
It  is  said  ■  that  the  meagre  and  formal  character  of 
the  class-room  instruction  may  to  some  extent  at 
least  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  existence 
of  such  a  prominent  system  of  shops  and  laboratories, 
libraries  and  workrooms,   conveys  the  impression 
that  there  will  be  no  difficulty  in  making  the  neces- 
sary applications,  so  the  class- teachers  may,  without 
sin,  stick  rather  rigidly  to  the  formal  treatment  of 
their  subjects.     There  is  further  a  peculiar  official 
in  the  Gary  system  whose  very  existence  may  to 
some  extent  weaken  the  sense  of  responsibility  in  the 
minds  of  class-teachers.     This  is  what  is  called  the 
"  application  teacher."     Her  special  concern  is  to 
assist   backward  pupils   and   to   place  before   the 
children  real  problems   of  the  type  that  the  world 

1  The  Gary  Schools  :  General  Account,  p.  105. 

2  Op.  cit.,  p.  102, 


The  Gary  Contribution  201 

of  industry,   business,    and   citizenship   will  place 
before  them  when  they  leave  school.1 

The  knowledge  that  there  are  such  functionaries 
on  the  staff  is  certainly  likely  to  blunt  the  conscience 
of  the  ordinary  teacher,  who  will  naturally  concen- 
trate on  her  special  subject  and  let  the  appropriate 
official  see  to  the  necessary  applications.  It  is 
evident  in  any  case  that  the  facts  at  Gary  do  not 
witness  in  favour  of  the  retention  of  this  particular 
functionary.  It  appears  that  in  1916  there  were 
only  four  application  teachers  on  the  staff,  and  that 
one  of  these  did  specialist  work  in  addition  to  her 
1 '  application. ' '  The  lesson  of  these  abortive  officials 
is  important.  Not  only  do  they  not  serve  the  pur- 
pose for  which  they  were  appointed,  but  they  tend 
to  prevent  others  from  serving  it.  There  may  be 
room  in  the  school  system  for  an  application  teacher 
or  teachers,  but  their  functions  should  be  to  deal 
with  the  staff,  not  with  the  pupils.  The  dean- 
teachers  of  whom  we  have  spoken  may  well  include 
this  function  among  their  others.  What  is  wanted 
is  a  deliberate  influence  exercised  on  the  staff  in  the 
direction  of  that  unification  of  purpose  demanded 
by  the  integralists. 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  features  of  the  Gary 
system  is  the  use  of  the  auditorium.  In  the  interests 
of  the  corporate  spirit,  our  English  schools  are  fully 
alive  to  the  need  for  some  gathering-place  where  the 
whole  school  can  meet  for  at  least  a  few  minutes 
every  day.  Many  teachers  are  prepared  to  put  up 
with  a  great  deal  of  inconvenience  for  themselves  and 
their  pupils  during  these  few  minutes,  rather  than 
1  Op.  cit.,  p.  83. 


202  The  Gary  Contribution 

give  up  what  the  meeting  implies.  At  Gary  the 
feeling  after  collective  unity  is  as  strong  as  elsewhere, 
but  the  auditoria  are  not  big  enough  to  meet  the 
needs  of  a  mass  meeting  of  all  the  pupils.  They 
are  used  throughout  the  day  by  instalments.  It 
would  be  entirely  against  the  Wirtian  policy  to  have 
a  vacuum  all  day  long  in  the  auditorium  after  the 
morning  exercises.  To  be  sure,  in  our  English 
schools  it  is  rare  to  find  a  school  hall  vacant  at  any 
period  of  the  day  ;  almost  invariably  the,  needs  of  the 
school  secure  a  little  overflow  class  in  one  corner  or 
other,  sometimes  in  one  or  two  corners  simul- 
taneously. But  this  surreptitious  use  is  deprecated, 
and  explained  as  being  forced  upon  the  teachers  by 
the  necessities  of  the  case.  Certainly  a  school  hall  is 
better  used  in  this  way  than  left  to  insult  the  spirit 
of  Wirt  with  a  vacuum.  But  at  Gary  the  auditorium 
is  used  pretty  constantly  all  day  long,  and  that  for 
its  special  purpose  of  massed  teaching  and  training. 
The  auditorium  is  really  a  class-room  for  such  work 
as  can  be  done  by  very  large  groups.  The  audience 
in  the  auditorium  is  made  up  of  several  classes 
close  enough  in  attainments  to  benefit  by  the  mass 
treatment.  Thus  a  day's  use  of  the  auditorium  at 
the  Froebel  school,  the  largest  at  Gary,  may  be  set 
out  in  tabular  form  : 


8.15 

to 

9.i5 

9.15 

to 

10.15 

10.15 

to 

11.15 

CO 

> 
u 
<u 

d 

I.T5 

to 

2.15 

2.15 
to 
315 

3-15 
to 

4i3 

Number  of  classes 
Number  of  pupils 
Grade  span 

7 

219 

4b-6b 

9 

276 

ia-4c 

7 

223 

6b-u 

5 

135 

6a-io 

8 

293 
ib-3a 

8 
264 
3C-6b 

The  Gary  Contribution  203 

The  resemblance  to  David  Stow's  "gallery  lessons" 
at  once  strikes  the  reader,  though  it  must  be  admitted 
that  Gary  works  on  a  grander  scale,  and  is  more 
merciful  to  its  teachers.  For  no  one  teacher  is  kept 
at  the  wheel  for  a  whole  day,  or  indeed  for  a  whole 
hour.  For  the  work  is  so  distributed  that  every- 
body who  has  a  talent  for  collective  teaching  has 
his  chance.  Dr.  Hayward  would  be  in  his  element 
as  the  organiser  of  the  sort  of  general  culture  lessons 
and  demonstrations  that  are  in  daily  progress  in 
the  Gary  auditoria,  and  Mr.  Caldwell  Cook  would 
find  an  admirable  outlet  for  the  energies  of  his 
Littlemen.  The  fact  is  that  sometimes  the  audi- 
torium exercise  suffers  materially  from  the  lack  of 
just  such  sustained  guidance  as  these  men  could 
supply.  We  are  told  that  the  value  of  this  collective 
work  varies  greatly — from  dead  failure  to  brilliant 
success.  The  movement,  however,  is  steadily  to- 
wards normal  success.  Teachers  of  special  powers  of 
organisation  are  gradually  taking  the  matter  in 
hand,  and  regulating  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  enlist 
the  services  of  those  who  excel  in  these  activities, 
which,  be  it  remembered,  demand  a  rather  special 
kind  of  talent. 

The  reporting  experts  tell  us  bluntly  that  they 
cannot  at  this  stage  pronounce  a  final  verdict  on  the 
Gary  auditorium,  but  they  are  quite  sure  that  the 
makeshift  auditorium  in  a  small  school  without 
proper  leadership  or  equipment,  and  as  a  practical 
substitute  for  class  work  in  literature  and  music, 
is  a  failure.  One  point  that  I  am  surprised  has  not 
attracted  more  attention  is  the  possibility  of  big 
advertisers  taking  up  the  auditorium- hour  for  their 


204  The  Gary  Contribution 

own  purposes,  paying  their  way  handsomely  by 
providing  genuine  educational  material  for  three- 
quarters  of  the  hour,  and  making  even  the  remaining 
quarter  that  deals  with  their  own  matters  instructive 
as  well  as  amusing  to  the  children.  Propagandists  of 
all  sorts  will  soon  begin  to  move  in  the  matter. 
The  hour  that  at  present  lies  in  the  lethargy  of  half- 
somnolent  art  may  waken  up  in  the  near  future  to 
find  itself  the  most  imposing  feature  of  the  school. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  PLAY, WAY 

MR.  H.  CALDWELLCOOK  hasdeserved  well  of 
his  craft  by  publishing  his  attractive  volume 
under  the  question-raising  title  of  The  Play  Way. 
The  three  words  exactly  describe  the  subject  dealt 
with,  but  experience  clearly  shows  that  the  nature 
of  the  book  is  very  generally  misunderstood  by  those 
who  have  not  taken  the  trouble  to  read  it.  There 
are  two  main  lines  of  misunderstanding.  The  use 
of  school  plays  is  now  so  common  that  it  is  perhaps 
not  unnatural  that  there  is  a  widespread  impression 
that  Mr.  Caldwell  Cook  has  written  a  treatise  on  how 
to  carry  on  stage  work  in  schools  on  educational 
principles.  The  casual  reader  turning  over  the 
pages  of  the  book,  and  noting  the  number  of  photo- 
graphs of  boys  in  various  theatrical  costumes  and 
attitudes,  gets  confirmation  of  the  general  impression, 
and  carries  away  the  idea  that  the  work  follows  the 
lines  of  Miss  H.  Finlay- Johnson's  The  Dramatic 
Method  of  Teaching.  But  the  two  books  approach 
the  subject  from  quite  different  standpoints.  The 
lady  recommends  the  dramatic  representation  in  all 
subjects.  Naturally  history  and  literature  lend 
themselves  most  readily  to  this  treatment,  but  she 
is  not  at  all  disposed  to  limit  the  method  to  them. 

205 


206  The  Play  Way 

She  practically  takes  the  whole  school  curriculum  as 
the  province  of  the  dramatic,  and  applies  her  method 
all  the  way  through.  Mr.  Caldwell  Cook,  on  the 
other  hand,  accepts  dramatic  representation  as  one 
of  a  variety  of  ways  in  which  he  can  get  the  pupils 
to  take  an  active  part  in  the  learning  process.  His 
main  concern  is  to  get  the  pupils  to  take  at  least 
their  fair  share  in  all  school  work,  including  especially 
that  part  that  is  usually  called  "  lessons."  Dramati- 
sation no  doubt  supplies  an  excellent  means  of 
reaching  this  end,  but  it  is  far  from  being  the  only 
one.  The  youngsters — Littlemen  is  the  technical 
term  he  uses  for  boys  at  the  Perse  School  who  are 
under  thirteen  years  of  age — are  encouraged  to  carry 
on  debates,  give  little  lectures,  write  topical  verses, 
draw  quaint  imaginative  maps. 

The  second  line  of  misunderstanding  is  to  regard 
play  as  a  diversion,  a  recreation,  a  relief  from  work. 
Those  who  expect  to  find  an  exposition  or  even  an 
exemplification  of  the  various  theories  of  the 
psychological  nature  of  play  '  will  come  away  dis- 
appointed. Mr.  Caldwell  Cook  is  almost  vehement  in 
his  rejection  of  this  diversion  theory.  He  assures 
us  "  that  the  play  methods  suggested  throughout 
this  book  are  not  a  relaxation  or  a  diversion  from 
real  study,  but  only  an  active  way  of  learning."  * 

The  fact  is  that  in  the  title  of  the  book  the  word 
Play  has  attracted  too  much  attention  to  itself  at 
the  expense  of  the  less  aggressive  word  Way.     For 

1  Those  who  want  information  of  this  kind  will  find  it  well 
put  in  Mr.  Walter  Wood's  Children's  Play  and  its  Place 
in  Education. 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  30. 


The  Play  Way  207 

Mr.  Caldwell  Cook  is  expounding  a  method  or  way 
in  which  he  proposes  that  all  learning  and  teaching 
should  be  carried  on.  In  this  case  the  play  is  not 
the  thing;  the  mode  of  approach  is  what  counts. 
To  say  that  work  is  to  be  attacked  in  a  playful 
spirit  conveys  a  curious  suggestion  of  frivolity 
that  is  quite  out  of  harmony  with  the  tone  of  the 
book.  Mr.  Caldwell  Cook  has  taken  to  heart  the 
saying  of  a  St.  Louis  schoolman  quoted  by  Professor 
W.  C.  Bagley  in  his  Craftsmanship  in  Teaching:  "The 
dominant  characteristic  of  the  child's  mind  is 
seriousness.  The  child  is  the  most  serious  creature 
in  the  world."  l  The  Play  Way  is  not  a  matter  of 
lowering  serious  work  to  the  level  of  flippant  enter- 
tainment, but  of  introducing  a  joyous  element 
into  the  grim  region  of  hard  work.  The  spirit  of 
Mr.  William  Piatt's  The  Joy  of  Education  is  generally 
praised,  but  many  are  unable  to  suppress  the  com- 
ment that  it  cannot  be  realised  in  actual  school  work. 
Mr.  Piatt's  experience  in  his  own  school  is  a  practical 
exemplification  of  the  workability  of  his  theory,  and 
Mr.  Caldwell  Cook  supplies  confirmatory  evidence 
from  practice,  accompanied  by  a  more  or  less  rea- 
soned statement  of  the  principles  on  which  his 
methods  are  based.  The  introduction  of  the  play 
spirit  into  work  is  often  regarded  with  suspicion, 
but  an  excellent  defence  may  be  set  up  based  on  the 
difficulty  of  distinguishing  between  work  and  play. 
The  moment  we  look  into  the  matter  we  realise 
that  while  a  logical  distinction  can  be  readily  made 
by  declaring  work  to  be  what  we  must  do  for  a 
living,  and  play  what  ,we  do  because  we  want  to 
1  Op.  tit.,  p.  125. 


208  The  Play  Way 

do  it,  we  feel  that  we  are  dealing  with  abstractions 
and  unrealities.  Professor  G.  H.  Palmer  drives  a 
wedge  into  the  distinction  when  he  says  in  The  Ideal 
Teacher :  "  Harvard  College  pays  me  for  doing 
what  I  would  gladly  pay  it  for  allowing  me  to  do."  ■ 
Tom  Sawyer's  glorious  manipulation  of  the  painting 
of  the  fence  drives  the  wedge  home  and  splits  the 
definition. 

Yet  the  practical  person  feels  that  a  distinction 
does  exist,  and  is  very  much  afraid  of  anything 
entering  the  educational  system  that  will  do  some- 
thing to  diminish  the  distinction  in  school  and  to 
that  extent  disqualify  the  pupil  for  his  life  in  the 
real  world  that  follows  school  and  that  certainly 
recognises  a  marked  difference  between  play  and 
work. 

Against  Caldwell  Cook  and  Piatt  and  the  Neo- 
Herbartians  on  the  one  side,  there  is  opposed  a 
great  body  of  practical,  hard-headed,  and  not  too 
soft-hearted  teachers  who  hold  up  for  our  admira- 
tion what  they  complacently  call  "the  good  old 
grind,"  and  solemnly  warn  us  against  the  snares  of 
"  the  primrose  path."  They  tell  us  that  there  is 
no  need  to  make  things  interesting.  In  their  after- 
lives the  pupils  will  not  find  the  world  putting  itself 
about  to  make  things  interesting  for  them,  so  it  is 
well  to  get  them  to  accustom  themselves  betimes 
to  face  the  uninteresting.  To  all  this  a  cheerful 
assent  may  be  given.  It  is  well  that  our  young  people 
should  acquire  the  power  of  dealing  with  things 
that  are  not  intrinsically  interesting.  But  this 
does  not  mean  that  we  ought  to  go  out  of  our  way 
1  Op.  cit.,  p.  3. 


The  Play  Way  209 

to  find  subjects  that  are  in  themselves  uninteresting 
and  dull.  Yet  the  good-old-grinders  go  even  so 
far  as  this,  and  read  with  satisfaction  what  Dr. 
Alexander  Hill  has  to  say  in  Spencer's  Aims  and 
Practice  of  Teaching,  where,  after  praising  the 
Classics  as  a  means  of  developing  the  power  of 
sustained  and  orderly  thinking,  he  goes  on  : 

"  Some  part  of  the  credit  for  this  most  desirable  result 
must  be  attributed  to  the  discipline  of  working  at  a  subject 
which  offers  in  itself  no  temptations  to  work.  No  advantages 
from  the  schoolboy  point  of  view  are  to  be  derived  from 
its  study.  It  does  not  come  near  enough  to  his  own  life 
to  arouse  his  curiosity.  His  only  motive  for  learning  his 
lesson  is  that  his  master  tells  him  to  do  so  ;  and  this,  we 
think,  should  always  be  sufficient."  * 

To  clear  up  matters  it  should  be  realised  that  there 
is  a  widespread  confusion  between  the  interesting 
and  the  pleasant.  What  is  pleasant  is  usually 
interesting,  but  what  is  interesting  is  not  necessarily 
pleasant.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  a  more  interesting 
place  than  the  dentist's  chair.  Etymologically  the 
word  interest  indicates  that  the  thing  that  attracts 
us  is  what  we  are  mingled  in,  and  form  a  part  of. 
It  concerns  us.  To  set  up  interest  in  a  matter  is  to 
get  into  contact  with  it  at  as  many  points  as  possible. 
To  be  told  to  learn  Latin  does  establish  a  contact, 
but  a  quite  insufficient  one.  So  far  from  removing 
school  subjects  out  of  the  range  of  ordinary  experi- 
ence, we  ought  to  connect  them  up  in  every  possible 
way.  This  is  being  more  and  more  recognised  every 
day.  In  our  next  chapter  we  shall  see  that  arith- 
metical problems  are  no  longer  of  the  absurd  kind 
1  Op.  cit.,  p.  283. 
14 


210  The  Play  Way 

that  used  to  be  common,  dealing  with  all  manner 
of  improbabilities,  not  to  say  impossibilities.  Geo- 
.graphy,  except  when  in  the  hands  of  the  advanced 
scientific  group,  who  appear  to  be  afraid  to  mention 
a  proper  name  in  a  geography  lesson,  deals  with 
matters  that  the  pupils  recognise  as  part  of  real 
life.  Even  history  is  brought  into  touch  with  what 
is  going  on  to-day  and  therefore  concerns  us. 

But  the  veteran  good-old-grinders  need  not  be 
discomposed  after  all.  The  introduction  of  the 
element  of  purpose  into  the  work  of  the  school 
certainly  rouses  interest,  but  it  does  not  dispose 
of  the  need  for  hard  work.  There  will  always  be 
enough  of  the  intrinsically  uninteresting  to  supply 
all  the  mental  strain  that  is  necessary.  The  un- 
interesting cannot  be  altogether  eliminated.  As  that 
good-old-grinder,  Professor  Bain,  remarks  with 
unseemly  satisfaction  : 

"  Then  comes  the  stern  conclusion  that  the  uninteresting 
must  be  faced  at  last ;  that  by  no  palliation  or  device  are 
we  able  to  make  agreeable  everything  that  has  to  be 
mastered.  The  age  of  drudgery  must  commence :  every 
motive  that  can  avert  it  is  in  the  end  exhausted."  ■ 

After  all,  the  teacher  who  wishes  to  utilise  interest 
does  not  seek  to  eliminate  the  uninteresting.  What 
he  wants  is  to  put  it  in  its  proper  place  in  relation 
to  what  is  interesting.  There  has  been  a  long  and 
tiresome  discussion  about  the  classification  of  the 
various  forms  of  attention,  the  point  in  dispute 
being  the  relation  between  the  two  forces — will  and 
interest — that  determine  the  manipulation  of  atten- 

1  Education  as  a  Science,  p.  184. 


The  Play  Way  211 

tion.  The  old  distinction  was  between  the  voluntary 
and  the  involuntary  forms.  The  first  was  marked 
by  the  deliberate  exercise  of  will,  the  second  by  the 
absence  of  this  exercise.  Naturally  there  arose 
confusion,  because  "  involuntary  "  might  be  held 
to  mean  not  merely  without  will,  but  against  will. 
Accordingly,  the  words  non-voluntary  and  avoluntary 
were  suggested.  Others  introduced  a  new  term, 
spontaneous,  and  rendered  confusion  worse  con- 
founded. It  is  much  simpler  to  get  rid  of  the  element 
of  will  altogether,  and  reduce  the  classification  of  the 
different  aspects  of  attention  to  a  twofold  one, 
adopting  the  sense  of  effort  as  the  basis.  We  can 
establish  quite  a  satisfactory  dichotomy  by  dividing 
all  forms  of  attention  into  two,  the  one  marked  by 
the  presence  of  effort  and  the  other  not.  Effortful 
and  effortless  attention  are  quite  easily  marked  off 
from  each  other,  and  may  be  named — after  the 
Latin  nisus,  a  striving  or  an  effort — nisic  and 
anisic  respectively.  The  names,  being  entirely 
new,  are  burdened  with  none  of  the  misleading 
connotation  that  hampers  the  use  of  the  older 
controversial  terms.  Besides,  they  permit  of  as 
detailed  an  additional  analysis  as  may  be  thought 
necessary  in  the  case  of  the  nisic  form,  for  it  is  obvious 
that  while  attention  must  be  either  nisic  or  anisic, 
the  nisic  kind  may  involve  any  degree  of  effort. 

The  educational  importance  of  the  distinction 
between  the  two  main  types  of  attention  may  be 
well  illustrated  by  the  question  sometimes  raised 
about  which  form  should  be  used  at  the  earliest 
stages.  It  used  to  be  said  that  the  teacher  ought 
to  begin  with  the  involuntary  form  and  pass  on  to 


212  The  Play  Way 

the  voluntary.  Probably  the  cause  of  this  prefer- 
ence was  that  voluntary  attention  sounds  much  more 
dignified  than  involuntary.  It  obviously  repre- 
sents a  higher  form  of  mental  activity,  and  it  is 
therefore  not  unnaturally  regarded  as  forming  a 
goal.  But  when  we  adopt  the  division  into  nisic 
and  anisic,  it  will  be  found  that  the  real  progress 
)  is  from  the  nisic  to  the  anisic.  It  surely  cannot  be 
the  purpose  of  the  teacher  to  make  his  pupils  pass 
from  an  attention  that  does  not  demand  effort  to 
an  attention  that  does.  The  truth  is  that  we  are 
continually  using  both  forms  of  attention,  and 
continually  passing  from  the  one  form  to  the  other  ; 
but  the  greatest  part  of  our  work  is  carried  on  by  the 
anisic  form.  It  is  true  that  the  teacher's  business 
\  is  not  to  save  his  pupils  from  making  efforts,  but 
to  encourage  them  to  make  efforts.  Yet  it  has  to 
be  kept  in  view  that  he  does  want  to  train  his  pupils 
to  economise  effort,  to  get  full  value  for  every  effort 
made.  Nisic  attention  should  be  used  only  when 
it  is  essential,  so  that  the  pupil's  efforts  may  be 
conserved  and  directed  into  the  most  profitable 
channels.  We  shall  return  to  this  matter  presently. 
The  good-old-grinders  have  on  their  side  the 
undoubted  fact  that  drudgery  has  to  be  faced  in 
this  world,  and  it  does  not  seem  an  unreasonable 
contention  that  our  pupils  should  be  made  to  face 
drudgery  as  soon  as  possible.  But  even  the  reac- 
tionaries shrink  from  carrying  their  principle  to  its 
legitimate  conclusion.  They  baulk  at  the  suggestion 
of  drudgery-drill  in  schools.  They  do  not  relish 
the  idea  of  specifically  training  drudges.  But  if 
they  draw  the  line  there,  the  question  is  reduced 


The  Play  Way  213 

to  one  of  degree.  If  drudgery  is  to  be  practised 
not  in  and  for  itself,  but  as  a  by-product  of  some 
school  process,  then  the  progressive  teachers  differ 
from  the  reactionaries  merely  in  the  remoteness 
of  the  drudgery  work  from  the  work  that  makes 
it  necessary  and  at  the  same  time  tolerable.  If  we 
take  the  dictionary  meaning  of  drudgery  as  "  un- 
interesting toil,"  we  want  to  know  if  there  is  an 
absolute  point  below  which  drudgery  makes  its 
first  appearance,  or  if  there  are  degrees  of  drudgery. 
No  evidence  is  produced  of  the  existence  of  a  standard 
degree  of  interest  below  which  work  becomes 
drudgery,  so  we  may  assume  that  it  is  a  matter  of 
degree,  and  that  therefore  the  more  interest  we  can 
introduce  into  a  given  piece  of  work,  the  further 
removed  it  is  from  drudgery. 

But  interest  is  commonly  regarded  as  of  two 
kinds,  direct  and  indirect.  It  is  impossible  to  get 
up  direct  interest  in  certain  matters,  but  if  we  can 
rouse  a  sufficient  amount  of  indirect  interest  it  may 
serve  our  turn.  In  order  to  attain  some  end  in 
which  we  are  really  interested,  it  is  often  necessary 
to  undertake  a  good  deal  of  uninteresting  toil. 
But  the  attraction  of  the  final  goal  is  sufficient  to 
spur  us  on  to  the  "  mean  toil"  of  the  dictionary 
definition.  In  fact  every  experienced  teacher  is 
familiar  with  the  toil  pupils  will  undertake  in  order 
to  attain  some  much-desired  end.  The  labour  we 
delight  in  physics  the  pain  of  its  otherwise  uninterest- 
ing accompaniments.  This  applies  even  to  purely 
school-room  activities,  as,  for  example,  in  the  case 
of  the  boy  who  because  it  became  fashionable  among 
his  school-mates  to  read  upside  down,  started   in 


214  The  Play  Way 

earnest  to  learn  to  read  rightside  up  in  order  to  be 
"  in  the  movement  "  of  reading  upside  down.  Any 
pupil  with  a  fairly  wide  range  of  interests  will  find 
some  part  of  school  work  that  it  is  to  his  advantage 
to  work  up.  It  is  the  business  of  the  teacher  to 
present  matters  in  such  a  way  as  to  facilitate  this 
passing  on  of  indirect  interest  to  matters  that  other- 
wise would  be  pure  drudgery.  Obviously  the  best 
y/  plan  for  rousing  the  initial  interest  is  to  see  that 
/\  everything  undertaken  by  the  pupil  has  some  more 
or  less  definite  purpose.  For  this  gives  a  meaning, 
and  therefore  suggests  an  interest. 

The  pupil  cannot  be  expected  to  be  interested  in 
something  that  is  merely  presented  to  him  by  another 
with  the  demand  that  he  shall  do  a  certain  piece  of 
work  according  to  the  directions  laid  down  by  that 
other.  He  is  not  sufficiently  involved  in  the  process 
to  feel  that  he  is  a  real  part  of  it.  One  of  the  most 
marked  characteristics  of  the  New  Teaching  is  that 
the  distribution  of  work  between  teacher  and  pupil 
is  better  understood.  We  now  realise  that  the 
highest  function  of  the  teacher  is  to  stimulate  his 
pupils  to  take  their  proper  share  in  the  activities 
of  the  class-room.  There  may  be  learning  without 
teaching,  and  there  may  be  a  process  that  passes  by 
the  name  of  teaching  and  yet  is  unaccompanied  by 
learning.  But  there  is  no  true  teaching  unless  it 
brings  about  learning.  Teaching  and  learning  are 
correlative  processes.  Unless  the  pupil  learns  because 
of  what  the  teacher  does,  there  has  been  no  real 
teaching.  As  old  David  Stow  used  to  bore  his 
young  students  by  reiterating  in  season  and  out  of 
season :    "A  thing  is  not  given  till  it  is  taken ;    a 


The  Play  Way  215 

lesson  is  not  taught  till  it  is  learnt."  There  must  be 
a  causal  relation  between  the  work  of  the  teacher 
and  the  learning  of  the  pupil.  The  business  of  the 
class-room  must  be  carried  on  as  a  partnership,  in 
which  the  teacher  is  the  directing  spirit  and  the 
pupil  does  most  of  the  work.  Naturally  this  does 
not  mean  that  under  the  new  schemes  he  is  to  have 
an  easier  time  of  it  than  before,  but  merely  that  in 
the  class-room  he  is  to  take  a  less  prominent  part 
than  under  the  old  scheme.  In  order  that  he  may 
have  to  do  little  overt  work  during  the  lesson  hour, 
the  teacher  must  make  careful  and  sometimes 
laborious  preparation  beforehand. 

All  this,  it  is  true,  can  again  be  traced  back  to 
Rousseau,  whose  system  of  negative  education  with 
its  principle  of  "  wisely  losing  time  "  really  involves 
all  that  has  now  come  to  more  or  less  clear  con- 
sciousness in  the  minds  of  teachers.  But  we  have 
only  to  consider  what  took  place  in  actual  school 
work  from  Rousseau's  day  to  ours  in  order  to  realise 
that  the  present  widespread  recognition  of  this 
principle  marks  a  change  that  may  fairly  justify 
the  term  New  Teaching,  particularly  when  we  trace 
its  effects  on  some  of  our  school  methods.  In 
certain  subjects  the  text-book  has  been  dethroned 
in  favour  of  the  pupil's  note-book.  In  such  subjects 
as  geometry,  science,  history,  geography,  the  pupils 
are  now  often  called  upon  to  make,  from  the  lessons 
given,  such  a  set  of  notes  as  will  practically  serve 
the  purposes  of  a  text-book.  No  doubt  this  plan 
involves  considerable  preparation  by  the  teachers, 
and  at  first  sight  it  would  almost  appear  as  if  the 
method  involved  a  more  prominent  share  than  ever 


216  The  Play  Way 

for  the  teacher  in  the  work  of  the  class-hour.  But 
since  the  preparation  of  the  note-book  is  thrown 
upon  the  pupils,  it  is  clear  that  their  responsibility 
is  greatly  increased.  The  same  principle  is  involved 
in  the  present  revolt  against  bookishness.  The 
claim  is  made  that,  wherever  possible,  pupils  should 
be  made  to  do  things  rather  than  read  about  them. 
Open-air  schools,  school  journeys,  nature  study  in 
the  fields,  and  gardening  work  at  school  are  all 
examples  of  this  revolt  against  bookishness.  But  it 
has  to  be  admitted  that  the  revolt  is  not  always 
intelligently  conducted.  There  is  a  sense,  and  there 
are  circumstances,  in  which  the  New  Education 
stands  in  need  of  more  book- work  and  not  less. 

The  Boy  Scout  and  Girl  Guide  movement  exempli- 
fies in  a  very  wholesome  way  the  modern  combina- 
tion of  knowing  and  doing.  For  knowledge  is 
treated  as  of  fundamental  importance,  since  it 
enables  the  boys  to  acquire  an  intelligent  under- 
standing of  the  processes  in  which  they  seek  to 
acquire  skill.  Scouting  is  carried  out  entirely  on 
the  lines  of  the  Play  Way.  It  is  essentially  a  game, 
full  of  make-believe  that  at  the  same  time  is 
harnessed  to  the  practical  in  such  a  way  as  to  lead 
to  serious  effort  in  order  to  -attain  a  greatly  desired 
skill.  No  better  illustration  could  be  found  of  the 
principle  of  making  drudgery  tolerable.  For  the 
ages  at  which  Scouting  is  most  popular  it  forms  an 
admirable  training  for  cultivating  the  social  virtues, 
and  enabling  the  youngsters  to  get  a  clear  practical 
acquaintance  with  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of 
citizenship,  and  that  without  the  trace  of  any 
political   bias.     Some   of   our    fundamental   social 


The  Play  Way  217 

problems  appear  to  be  settled  by  the  scouts  in  their 
stride,  during  their  periods  in  camp.  Here  indeed 
we  have  the  Play  Way  in  excelsis.  The  boys  take 
themselves  very  seriously,  and  their  life  becomes  for 
the  time  an  ordered  whole,  in  which  all  the  ordinary 
social  problems  present  themselves  in  a  very  practical 
form  that  demands  immediate  solution.  Difficulties 
cannot  be  put  off  to  a  more  convenient  season  : 
something  must  be  done  at  once.  There  has  to  be 
a  social  system  set  up  in  such  a  way  as  to  work. 
There  must  be  workers  and  directors  of  work,  and 
all  their  activities  must  be  so  correlated  as  to  avoid 
friction,  and  promote  harmonious  activity.  There 
is  a  tribal  council,  and  there  are  seven  positions  of 
importance  that  are  open  to  competition  to  all  who 
can  satisfy  the  council  of  their  capacity  to  fill  them. 
Each  such  officer  has  the  right  to  use  a  sign  before 
his  tent,  in  keeping  with  his  dignity.  Six  of  these 
officers  are  named  as  follows  :  (i)  Keeper  of  the 
Council  Fire ;  (ii)  Beater  of  the  Tom-Tom ;  (iii) 
Tribal  Totem  Keeper ;  (iv)  Keeper  of  the  Legends  ; 
(vi)  Tribal  Medicine  Man ;  (vii)  Herald  of  the 
Council.  One  can  readily  understand  the  keen 
competition  for  such  posts,  but  it  will  be  noted  that 
number  v  has  been  omitted,  as  I  wish  to  call  special 
attention  to  it.  This  officer  rejoices  in  the  name  of 
the  Keeper  of  the  Garbage,  and  the  fact  that  he 
ranks  with  the  others  as  the  holder  of  a  place  of 
dignity  is  significant. 

Mr.  John  Hargrave,  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
Scout  Masters  in  the  country  (he  is  well  known  to 
scouts  as  White  Fox),  gives  an  account  of  the  duties 
of  the  Garbage  Keeper  in  just  the  same  detail  as 


218  The  Play  Way 

those  of  the  other  officers.  These  do  not  seem  in 
any  way  attractive,  but  we  gather  from  the  context ' 
that  there  is  no  difficulty  in  filling  the  post.  The 
sign  of  this  Keeper  is  a  heart  into  which  are  darting 
five  streaks  of  lightning.  The  symbolism  is  not 
quite  clear  till  we  are  told  that  this  is  the  sign  of 
health.  One  would  have  thought  that  here  there 
was  poaching  on  the  domain  of  the  Medicine  Man, 
but  the  latter  has  to  be  content  with  a  shield  enclos- 
ing the  Geneva  Cross.  One  admires  the  tact  under- 
lying this  elevating  symbolism,  and  from  what  I 
can  gather  from  Scout  Masters  a  very  serious  trouble 
is  thus  eased,  if  not  removed.  I  am  told  that  for 
the  complete  solution  of  the  garbage  problem,  the 
military  parallel  has  to  be  utilised.  The  fact  that 
the  disposal  of  garbage  is  of  first  importance  in  a 
real  soldiers'  camp  reconciles  the  boys  to  this 
disagreeable,  but,  in  scout  public  opinion,  not 
undignified  work.  Under  scout  law  the  problem  of 
the  golden  dustman  has  been  solved. 

So  alluring  is  camp  life,  and  so  full  of  promise 
of  health  and  physical  strength,  that  Mr.  Hargrave 
would  like  to  make  it  permanent.  If  he  had  his 
way  all  the  boys  of  the  country  would  live  always  in 
camp,  under  canvas  during  the  summer  months  and 
in  huts  during  the  winter.  His  scheme  is  not  limited 
to  boys;  he  would  extend  it  to  young  men  and 
women,  and  even  would  suggest  that  married  men 
and  their  families  might  do  worse  than  join  in  the 
movement,  naturally  under  easier  conditions  than 
those  imposed  on  the  youngsters. 

These  proposals  take  us  out  of  the  region  of 
1  The  Great  War  Brings  it  Home,  pp."i75~fft 


The  Play  Way  219 

practical  education  so  soon  as  they  pass  beyond 
the  scout  age,  but  are  interesting  as  illustrating  the 
wide  range  of  the  spirit  underlying  the  Play  Way. 
Further,   the  above  extravagant  proposals  give  a 
much-needed  opportunity  for  the  good- old- grinders 
to  let  off  steam.     For  we  who  have  leanings  towards 
the  Play  Way,  and  all  that  it  implies,  must  have 
some  consideration  for  those  who  hold  so  staunchly 
by  the  old  plans.     We  must  let  them  explode  now 
and  again,  and  we  must  keep  an  open  mind  to  take 
note  of  their  objections.     They  have  a  good  deal  to 
say  in  favour  of  their  views,  and  nowhere  are  they 
more  dangerous  than  when  they  make  themselves 
disagreeable    by    maintaining    that    this    cry    for 
interest  is  really  a  pandering  to  the  innate  selfishness 
of  human  nature.     Instead  of  mortifying  the  flesh 
in  the  time-honoured  way,  the  primrose-pather  is 
accused  of  truckling  to  plain  human  selfishness.   To 
be  perfectly  candid,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the 
charge  is  literally  true.     The  boy  who  follows  the 
line  of  his  interest  is  certainly  following  the  line  that 
his  self  would  dictate.     If  we  now  consult  our  psycho- 
analytical friends  about  this  self  we  find  it  such  a 
cesspool  that  we  are  unwilling  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  it,  and  feel  inclined  to  join  the  good- old- 
grinders  in  doing  everything  we  can  to  repress  it. 
If  one  reads  The  Beloved  Ego  by  Dr.  Wilhelm  Stekel, 
one  is  inclined  to  think  that  what  this  ego  needs  is 
the  firmest   possible  repression.     But   fortunately 
we  need  not  take  our  view  of  the  nature  of  the  ego 
from  a  Vienna  psychotherapist.     We  need  not  attach 
much  importance  to  the  opinions  of  a  man  who 
writes,  seemingly  in  all  earnestness  : 


2 


20  The  Play  Way 


The  sight  of  a  cheerful  gathering  of  people — chatting, 
exchanging  mutual  confidences  and  friendly  words  of 
appreciation  and  congratulation,  apparently  in  pure  en- 
joyment and  friendship — calls  a  very  different  vision  before 
me.  I  see  these  people  as  they  really  are  :  mocking,  envy- 
ing, and  full  of  ill-will  towards  each  other.  It  is  the  '  inner 
man  '  that  I  see." l 

This  is  very  depressing,  but  it  is  certainly  not 
new.  The  sort  of  thing  has  been  done  before,  and 
better  done.  Swift  was  in  the  field  before  Stekel 
was  heard  of.  Nor  is  it  true.  Human  nature  no 
doubt  stands  in  need  of  all  the  defence  it  can  find, 
but  in  the  last  resort  it  is  not  so  hideous  as  pictures 
of  this  sort  would  make  out.  Besides,  in  education 
we  have  the  comparatively  untarnished  ego  to  work 
with.  For  whatever  truth  underlies  such  pictures 
of  adult  life  as  Stekel  draws,  we  must  feel  ourselves 
as  educators  to  some  extent  responsible. 

But  in  dealing  with  this  question  of  interest  and 
selfishness  we  are  apt  to  be  misled,  as  in  so  many 
other  matters,  by  the  influence  of  words.  The 
child  is  certainly  born  into  the  world  with  a  fierce 
ego-centric  bias.  He  regards  everything  from  his 
own  standpoint.  He  is  the  centre  of  the  universe. 
Even  we  who  have  grown  up  cannot  get  away  from 
that  position.  However  modest  we  may  be,  how- 
ever much  we  may  desire  to  keep  out  of  the  lime- 
light, the  fact  remains  that  we  must  of  necessity 
look  at  things  as  if  we  were  the  centre  of  the  universe. 
Philosophically  we  are  each  the  centre  of  the 
universe,  and  can  think  only  on  that  understanding. 
But  this  does  not  carry  with  it  the  imputation 
usually  conveyed  by  the  word  self-ishness.  We 
1  W.  Stekel,  The  Disguises  of  Love,  p.  i. 


The  Play  Way  221 

may  be  ego-centric  and  yet  treat  all  other  egos 
with  justice  and  consideration.  The  crowd  that 
Stekel  describes  are  not  merely  ego-centric,  they 
are  malicious.  Ego-centricism,  so  far  from  being 
a  drawback,  is  an  advantage.  It  gives  stability  to 
our  social  structure.  The  vigorous  self-reference 
of  a  child  at  school  is  really  Nature's  protection 
against  society  in  general,  and  the  teacher  in  par- 
ticular. Had  we  teachers  our  way,  our  pupils 
would  be  all  eminently  pliable,  and  would  allow 
themselves  to  be  turned  into  whatever  form  it 
pleased  us  to  impose.  But  provided  with  this 
innate  ego-centric  force  they  offer  resistance  to 
our  influence  and  thus  avoid  what  Mr.  Edmond 
Holmes  would  call  the  Nemesis  of  Docility. 

No  doubt  the  teacher  can  affect  the  pupils  and 
modify  their  development,  but  he  can  do  it  only 
on  the  understanding  that  he  respects  their  inner 
nature.  He  can  command  only  by  obeying  the 
laws  of  the  child's  own  nature.  He  must  stoop  to 
conquer. 

/  When  the  teacher  seeks  to  interest  his  pupils,  he 
is  merely  searching  for  the  best  way  of  appealing 
Ao  the  laws  of  their  nature.  So  far  from  surrender- 
/  ing  his  power  of  influencing  the  child,  he  is  using 
the  only  means  by  which  he  can  exercise  effective 
control  over  the  pupil's  mental  processes.  It  is  by 
manipulating  interest  that  the  good-old-grinders 
themselves  exercise  whatever  powers  they  do 
possess.  The  pupil  learns  Latin  not  because  he 
wants  to,  but  because  he  is  interested — in  the  cane, 
or  in  some  other  disagreeable  consequence  of  neg- 
lecting Latin.     There  is  no  question  of  getting  rid 


222  The  Play  Way 

of  interest :  that  cannot  be  done.  The  practical 
point  is  the  kind  of  interest  and  the  way  in  which 
it  is  applied.  It  may  be  said  that  the  primrose- 
pathers  have  also  to  use  coercive  measures  on 
occasion,  and  the  charge  must  be  allowed.  If  we 
cannot  get  a  response  to  our  appeal  to  one  interest, 
we  must  try  another,  even  if  that  other  be  a 
lower  one.  The  good-old-grinder  is  not  necessarily 
addicted  to  the  cane.  He  is  severe,  no  doubt,  but 
he  may  attain  his  ends  without  falling  back  upon 
the  grosser  form  of  punishment.  Where  he  differs 
from  the  primrose-pather  is  in  the  incidence  of  the 
interest  he  arouses.  In  the  primrose  path  the 
pupil  is  induced  to  take  an  interest  in  the  subject 
itself  and  its  applications.  Those  who  are  kept  at 
the  good  old  grind  are  interested  to  avoid  un- 
pleasant consequences,  and  therefore  do  the  work 
required. 

Ultimately,  however,  the  two  plans  merge  to 
some  extent,  for  unless  nisic  attention  is  immedi- 
ately supported  by  anisic,  distraction  inevitably 
follows.  {Experimental  psychologists  tell  us  that 
pure  nisic  attention  can  be  sustained  for  only  a 
few  seconds  at  a  time.  Will  can  direct  attention 
to  this  object  or  to  that ;  but  unless  a  certain 
amount  of  interest  is  roused  in  the  object  itself, 
attention  must  immediately  flag.  The  good-old- 
grinder's  order  to  attend  is  sufficient  to  direct  the 
pupil's  nisic  attention  to  the  subject,  say  Latin  ; 
but  unless  an  interest  of  some  sort  is  roused  in 
Latin  itself,  the  attention  inevitably  wanders. 
Fortunately  human  beings  are  so  constituted  that 
when  the  mind  is  firmly  turned  in  any  direction  it 


The  Play  Way  223 

readily  finds  elements  that  rouse  some  anisic 
attention.  In  this  way,  by  an  excessive  expenditure 
of  effort,  the  pupil  of  the  good-old-grinder  manages 
to  attend  well  enough  to  master  the  particular  bit 
of  work  set.  But  there  is  point  in  Tranio's  protest, 
M  No  profit  grows  where  is  no  pleasure  fa' en," 
though  even  the  primrose-pathers  would  hardly  go 
the  length  of  endorsing  the  consequent  recom- 
mendation :  "In  brief,  sir,  study  what  you  most 
affect." 

This  advice  raises  the  whole  question  of  the 
pupil's  choice  of  subjects.  The  problem  is  whether 
he  should  have  a  prescribed  course  set  out  before 
him,  or  should  be  allowed  to  select  his  own  subjects. 
The  matter  has  been  put  with  a  certain  grim  humour, 
Shall  education  be  d  la  carte  or  table  d'hote  ?  The 
practical  answer  of  progressive  teachers  is  that  it 
should  be  both.  In  order  that  the  pupil  may 
work  with  zest,  that  he  may  be  able  to  face  his 
studies  in  the  Play  Way,  it  is  essential  that  he 
should  be  allowed  to  choose  subjects  that  really 
appeal  to  him.  On  the  other  hand,  in  order  that 
his  education  may  not  be  lopsided,  he  must  not  be 
allowed  to  omit  the  whole  of  certain  groups  of 
subjects.  The  difficulty  may  be  met,  to  continue 
the  metaphor,  by  making  education  table  d'hote  so 
far  as  the  courses  are  concerned,  but  d  la  carte  with 
regard  to  the  choice  within  each  course.  In  this 
way  each  pupil  will  be  ensured  a  sufficiently  wide 
range  of  subjects,  and  yet  within  that  range  be  able 
to  exercise  his  individual  preference.  |  The  workaday 
puzzle  that  is  continually  facing  the  teacher  here  is 
whether  a  pupil  who  is  really  bad  at  a  subject  should 


224  The  Play  Way 

be  allowed  to  drop  it  in  favour  of  one  at  which  he 
can  do  satisfactory  work.  This  seems  a  reasonable 
enough  concession  till  the  point  is  raised  that  since 
he  dislikes  this  subject  he  will  never  look  at  it  after 
school  days  are  over,  and  that  therefore,  if  he  is 
to  have  any  acquaintance  with  it  at  all,  he  ought 
to  be  kept  at  it  while  under  tutelage.  By  allowing 
a  choice  within  groups,  we  give  the  pupil  the  chance 
of  selecting  the  particular  subject  of  a  distasteful 
group  of  studies  that  is  least  repellent,  and  of  thus 
acquiring  a  fairly  well-balanced  circle  of  knowledge. 
What  happens  in  individual  lessons  happens  on  the 
wider  scale  of  the  whole  curriculum.  By  forcing 
himself  to  attend  to  a  rather  distasteful  subject  in 
which  he  has  little  primitive  interest,  the  pupil 
puts  himself  in  a  position  where  interest  will  slowly 
gather  round  the  unattractive  subject,  and  in  the 
end  he  will  have  a  sufficient  store  of  anisic  attention 
at  his  disposal  to  carry  on  his  studies  in  this  un- 
desired  branch  without  an  altogether  unjustifiable 
outlay  of  effort,  but  he  should  not  be  called  on  to 
carry  an  uncongenial  subject  to  any  high  stage. 

It  may  be  some  comfort  to  the  good-old-grinders 
to  note  that  the  status  and  application  of  interest 
have  undergone  a  change  since  the  Herbartians 
took  it  in  hand.  Up  to  the  time  of  this  philosopher, 
interest  was  regarded  among  educators  as  a  means. 
Pupils  had  to  be  interested  in  their  work  in  order 
that  it  might  be  properly  done.  Interest  in  the 
work  itself  was  the  best  kind,  but  if  that  were  not 
available  the  next  best  thing  was  interest  in  some- 
thing closely  connected  with  the  subject  to  be 
studied.     But  Herbart  raised  interest  to  a  higher 


The  Play  Way  225 


place,  and  made  it  not  merely  a  means,  but  an  end. 
It  had  to  fulfil  its  old  function  as  a  driving  force 
in  the  actual  process  of  learning,  but  at  the  same 
time  it  began  to  attain  a  place  as  the  goal  towards 
which  the  whole  educative  process  was  tending. 
Many-sided  interest  became  the  ultimate  aim  of 
education.  The  truly  well-educated  man  is  regarded 
as  the  man  who  is  sensitive  to  a  wide  circle  of  appeals 
from  life.  These  appeals  may  not  be  all  towards 
good.  For  many-sided  interest  may  include  evil 
as  well.  The  truly  educated  man  is  sensitive  to  all 
the  available^stimuli,  good  or  bad,  though  of  course 
he  responds  in  a  different  way  to  each  stimulus 
according  to  its  intrinsic  value,  and  to  the  bias 
given  by  moral  training. 

This  many-sided  interest  is  cultivated  indirectly 
by  working  out  a  broad  curriculum  in  a  new  way. 
But  the  New  Education  is  not  content  to  leave 
the  cultivation  of  sensitiveness  to  the  chances  of 
by-education.  One  of  its  characteristic  features  is 
the  Appreciation  Lesson.  Here  we  have  a  deliberate 
attempt  to  help  young  people  to  appreciate  certain 
forms  of  art.  Many  teachers  are  suspicious  of  this 
witting  effort  to  make  pupils  enjoy  artistic  presen- 
tations. They  are  inclined  to  believe  that  such 
enjoyment  will  either  come  naturally  from  the 
exercise  of  the  art  by  the  pupils  themselves,  or 
will  not  come  at  all.  In  particular  it  is  feared  that 
a  certain  element  of  priggishness  will  be  introduced 
into  school  work  by  this  direct  appeal  to  the 
emotions  of  the  pupils.  To  make  pupils  appreciate 
music,  teach  them  to  play  on  some  instrument  or 
to  sing  ;  to  make  them  enjoy  paintings,  teach  them 
15 


226  The  Play  Way 

to  draw  and  to  paint.  Merely  to  tell  them  to  enjoy 
this  piece  of  music  or  this  fine  picture  is  to  court 
failure  by  an  artificial  approach  that  is  likely  to 
result  in  aesthetic  hypocrisy.  But  the  new  method 
is  not  so  crude  as  all  that.  The  main  point  is  not 
so  much  to  tell  children  what  they  should  appreciate, 
as  to  present  to  them  material  that  is  worthy  of 
their  admiration,  under  circumstances  that  give  the 
worthy  objects  the  best  chance  of  making  a  success- 
ful appeal.  Instead  of  depending  for  inspiration 
on  the  notes  that  can  be  drawn  by  their  own  efforts 
from  piano  or  violin,  the  pupils  are  brought  into 
contact  with  excellent  performers  at  work.  Appre- 
ciation, thus  stimulated,  often  works  in  two  ways  : 
the  pupils  enjoy  more  or  less  passively,  but  they  are 
also  stirred  to  do  better  as  executants.  But  even 
in  the  case  of  those  who  have  neither  desire  nor 
talent  for  execution,  much  has  been  gained  when 
they  are  led  to  appreciate  the  artistic  expression 
of  others. 

The  forces  of  imitation  and  suggestion  no  doubt 
count  for  much  here  as  elsewhere  in  school  work. 
The  fact  that  the  teacher  is  obviously  enjoying  the 
poem  that  he  reads  to  the  class  has  a  great  deal  to 
do  with  the  chances  that  the  pupils  will  enjoy  it  in 
their  turn,  and  that  without  the  slightest  unwhole- 
someness  in  the  way  of  hypocrisy  or  priggishness. 
No  doubt  the  pupils  should  be  encouraged  to  express 
themselves  actively,  as  far  as  possible,  in  all  the 
available  artistic  directions,  for,  combining  as  it 
does  the  active  with  the  passive  sides,  the  Appre- 
ciation Lesson  offers  an  excellent  example  of  the 
application  of  the  Play  Way. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  PROJECT  METHOD 

ONE  of  the  most  characteristic  of  modern 
tendencies  in  school  method  is  the  general 
recognition  of  the  purposive  element.  There  is  a 
very  wide  acceptance  of  the  view  that  pupils  should 
always  have  a  clear  idea  of  why  they  do  certain 
things  in  school.  No  longer  can  a  reactionary  teacher 
claim  that  the  fact  that  he  so  wills  it  is  a  sufficient 
reason  for  a  pupil  studying  any  subject  or  any  part 
of  a  subject.  There  is,  no  doubt,  still  a  place  for 
certain  "  drills  "  in  the  more  mechanical  parts  of  the 
instrumental  subjects,  but  even  those  drills  have 
their  purpose  explained  to  the  pupils.  When  it 
comes  to  problems  we  are  in  a  familiar  region. 
Pupils  have  been  for  long  accustomed  to  deal  with 
practical  applications  of  the  principles  they  have 
learnt.  The  clever  boys  like  problems ;  the  dull 
boys  detest  them.  But  neither  clever  nor  dull  boys 
used  to  pay  much  attention  to  the  content  of  the 
problem.  It  was  regarded  as  a  school  exercise,  and 
as  something  quite  apart  from  anything  having  to 
do  with  real  life.  Especially  in  Arithmetic  were 
problems  set  producing  results  that  were  laughably 
out  of  keeping  with  the  realities  of  life.  Salmon 
were  sold  at  prices  that  roused  the  scorn  of  boys 

227 


228  The  Project  Method 


who  knew  the  state  of  the  fish-market ;  walls  three 
feet  thick,  twenty  feet  high,  and  thirty  feet  long 
could  be  built  in  a  few  minutes  if  only  a  sufficient 
number  of  men  were  set  out  in  the  conditions  of 
the  problem ;  many  things  could  be  done  exactly 
only  on  the  condition  that  a  certain  fraction  of  a 
man  could  be  made  to  do  its  fair  share  of  the  work. 
The  gradual  introduction  of  the  human  element 
into  school  work,  technically  known  as  socialisation, 
made  teachers  as  well  as  pupils  critical  of  the 
problems  that  ran  counter  to  common  sense.1 

Problems  began  to  be  set  that  involved  some 
little  research,  as  well  as  the  application  of  arith- 
metical principles.  A  boy  would  be  asked  such  a 
question  as  "If  you  were  offered  £10,000  in  gold 
on  condition  that  you  carried  it  home  with  you 
from  the  bank  to-day,  would  you  be  any  the  richer 
to-night."  At  such  a  problem  the  boy's  eye  gleams  : 
he  actually  wants  to  know.  Since  it  was  given 
before  the  war,  the  teacher  was  in  a  position  to  let 
the  boys  have  the  use  of  a  few  gold  coins  and  a  letter 
balance.  A  moment  or  two  was  enough  to  find 
that  three  sovereigns  plus  a  half-sovereign  weigh 
almost  exactly  an  ounce.  Dividing  10,000  by  3^ — 
for  once  fractions  seemed  to  have  some  use — gave 
2857-1  oz.,  after  which  a  division  by  16  produced 
the  result  of  178-1  lb.  The  problem  remained  to 
determine  whether  this  was  a  weight  within  the 
carrying    power    of    the    class.     The    consequent 

1  Not  in  comic  papers  only,  but  in  real,  sober,  irritating 
school  life  teachers  sometimes  receive  letters  from  trade- 
union  parents  objecting  to  problems  involving  men 
"  working  ten  hours  a  day." 


The  Project  Method  229 

experiments  produced  varying  results  in  the  case  of 
the  different  boys,  but  the  depressing  conclusion 
became  clear  that  none  of  them  were  likely  to 
become  rich  quickly,  even  if  they  got  such  a  gaudy 
offer.  One  result  of  the  working  out  of  the  problem 
was  that  the  master  raised  his  offer  to  £20,000  with 
his  next  class,  as  the  resulting  doubt  with  some  of 
the  stronger  boys  was  unsettling,  and  led  to  endless 
discussion  and  some  boasting.  No  doubt  discussion 
is  good,  but  it  ought  to  be  capable  at  this  stage  of 
definite  and  conclusive  settlement.  For  example, 
the  boy  who  made  the  following  slip  was  readily 
made  to  see  and  acknowledge  his  error.  Though 
he  was  one  of  the  best  arithmeticians  in  the  class, 
he  showed  how  easy  it  is  to  go  off  the  straight,  if 
one  merely  sticks  to  school-room  tradition.  Because 
gold  is  measured  by  Troy  weight  he  divided  by 
twelve  instead  of  by  sixteen,  overlooking  the  fact 
that  though  gold  is  sold  by  Troy  weight  it  is 
carried  by  avoirdupois. 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  problem  was  a  fair  one, 
and  involved  no  "  catch."  No  one  was  more  sur- 
prised than  the  teacher  at  the  snare  into  which 
over-ingenuity  had  led  the  clever  pupil.  "  Which 
would  you  rather  have :  a  half-hundredweight  of 
whole  sovereigns  or  a  whole  hundredweight  of  half- 
sovereigns  ?  "  is  not  a  problem  in  the  proper  sense 
of  that  word :  it  is  a  pitfall.  What  is  wanted  for 
school  purposes  can  be  best  illustrated  by  a  plain 
statement  of  a  definite  end  to  be  attained,  leaving 
to  the  pupils  the  discovery  of  means  to  attain  it. 
For  example,  the  problem  may  be  set :  "  How  long 
would  it  take  you  (that  is  you,  John  Smith,  or 


230  The  Project  Method 


whatever  your  name  is,  not  a  boy  in  general)  to 
walk  from  London  to  Aberdeen  ?  "  The  boys  at 
once  want  to  know  the  distance  between  the  two 
cities,  and  often  make  the  blunder  of  finding  that 
distance  by  means  of  the  scales  on  their  maps.  It 
is  necessary  to  make  them  realise  that  this  is  the 
distance  "  as  the  crow  flies,"  and  that  they  are  not 
crows.  By  reference  to  the  "  ABC  "  railway  time- 
table it  is  found  that  the  distance  by  rail  is  522I- 
miles — a  somewhat  longer  distance  than  the  crow- 
flying  one.  The  boys  are  induced  to  make  a  certain 
addition  even  to  this,  on  account  of  the  greater 
crookedness  of  road  as  compared  with  railway  lines, 
and  come  to  the  conclusion  that  600  miles  will  be 
a  not  unreasonable  estimate  of  what  must  be  walked 
between  the  two  cities.  Then  experiments  have  to 
be  made  to  discover  how  many  miles  can  be  walked 
in  an  hour,  and  investigations  into  the  number  of 
hours  per  day  that  such  a  rate  could  be  kept  up. 
The  boys  are  usually  remarkably  optimistic  in  their 
estimate  of  their  powers,  and  the  teacher  has  to 
recall  to  them  their  state  of  fatigue  after  a  ten-, 
fifteen-,  or  twenty- mile  walk.  In  the  end,  a  rough- 
and-ready  idea  of  how  long  the  expedition  would 
take  is  attained,  and  in  the  process  much  incidental 
information  has  been  acquired. 

It  is  obvious  that  in  all  such  problems  there 
remains  a  strong  element  of  the  theoretical.  The 
pupils'  interest  is  still  largely  scholastic.  There  is 
not  a  sufficiently  serviceable  bridge  between  the 
school  world  and  the  outside  world.  Even  yet, 
round  the  word  problem  there  clings  a  fringe  of  the 
scholastic,  a  suggestion  of  the  intellectual  rather 


The  Project  Method  231 

than  the  practical.  All  the  same,  problems  like  the 
above  do  indicate  a  stretching  out  towards  the  real 
everyday  world,  and  the  Americans  have  been  quick 
to  see  the  possibilities  of  developing  the  underlying 
idea.  They  have,  in  fact,  elaborated  a  new  method, 
and  in  order  to  keep  it  free  from  the  taint  of  pure 
intellectualism  that  is  associated  with  the  problem, 
they  have  invented  a  new  name,  and  called  it  the 
Project  Method.  It  is  not  that  there  was  any  special 
lack  of  methods  at  the  time  when  this  new  one  was 
floated.  In  fact,  a  careful  survey  of  forty-two 
text-books,  covering  among  them  such  subjects  as 
mathematics,  languages,  science,  geography,  brought 
out  the  fact  that  no  fewer  than  fourteen  methods 
of  teaching  were  found 

"  with  sufficient  frequency  to  warrant  the  statement  that 
they  comprise  those  now  in  most  common  use .  The  methods 
noted  are  :  questions,  topics,  problems,  examples,  originals, 
exercises,  drills,  tests,  reviews,  applications,  illustrations, 
demonstrations,  experiments,  and  practicums."  x 

Most  of  these  terms  are  intelligible  to  English 
readers,  but  two  of  them  may  need  a  little  elucida- 
tion— originals  and  practicums.  The  first  appears 
to  be  confined  to  geometry,  in  which  it  stands  for 
the  bald  statement  of  a  theorem,  where  the  proof 
and  sometimes  the  construction  is  left  to  the  pupil, 
instead  of  both  being  supplied  as  was  the  case  under 
the  Euclidean  scheme.  The  term  "  original  "  there- 
fore is  not  one  that  requires  much  consideration. 
The  "practicum"  is  of  more  importance,  and  is 
one  of  the  most  recent  developments  in  the  nomen- 

1  J.  A.  Stevenson,  The  Project  Method  of  Teaching,  p.  22. 


232  The  Project  Method 

clature  of  method.  I  cannot  find  anywhere  a 
detailed  definition  of  the  term,  but  it  is  not  difficult 
to  gather  its  meaning  from  its  use.  It  appears  to 
indicate  any  way  in  which  principles  can  be  applied 
to  practical  affairs.  Thus,  when  our  pupils  are  in 
the  lecture  room  getting  a  lesson  in  chemistry  they 
are  acquiring  principles  :  when  they  pass  into  the 
laboratory,  they  are  entering  on  a  practicum. 
Measuring  a  field,  and  finding  the  width  of  a  river 
by  means  of  trigonometry,  are  mathematical  practi- 
cums.  Translating  in  the  History  class  a  document 
in  mediaeval  Latin  may  be  regarded  as  a  classical 
practicum.  Stress  is  laid  on  the  usefulness  of  the 
thing  to  be  done,  and  on  the  interest  it  excites  in 
the  pupil  doing  it. 

If  there  is  no  available  definition  of  "  practicum," 
there  is  a  plethora  of  definitions  of  "project"  as 
found  in  an  educational  setting.  Dr.  Stevenson 
gives  a  very  succinct  statement  that  may  well  serve 
for  a  text :  "A  project  is  a  problematic  act  carried 
to  completion  in  its  natural  setting."  He  points  out 
that  in  the  project  what  one  does  is  the  prominent 
thing.1  No  doubt  principles  are  involved,  but  they 
are  not  put  in  the  forefront.  In  illustration, 
W.  W.  Charters  is  quoted  : 

"  In  the  topical  organisation  principles  are  learned  first, 
while  in  the  project,  the  problems  are  proposed  which 
demand  in  the  solution  the  development  of  principles  by 
the  learner  as  needed." 

Obviously  a  contrast  is  here  implied  between  the 
practicum  and  the  project,  in  which  the  practicum 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  43. 


The  Project  Method  233 

ranks  along  with  the  problem  as  a  process  in  which 
the  principles  are  first  communicated  or  acquired 
and  then  applied,  while  in  the  project  the  discovery 
of  the  necessary  principles  is  a  condition  precedent 
to  a  successful  tackling  of  a  situation.  But  the 
fundamental  difference  between  the  problem  and 
the  project  lies  in  the  tail  of  Dr.  Stevenson's 
definition  "  in  its  natural  setting."  This  takes  us 
at  once  beyond  the  school  area  altogether,  right 
into  the  outside  world.  It  is  not  enough  to  work 
out  neat  little  problems  in  the  school  laboratory, 
and  bring  the  results  to  bear  on  the  needs  of  the 
home.  The  whole  project  has  to  be  worked  out 
beyond  the  school  walls.  The  situation  to  be 
faced  has  first  to  be  found,  and  then  the  means 
sought  by  which  the  desired  result  may  be  achieved. 
Now  all  this  is  very  encouraging  to  the  practical 
person,  and  to  employers  who  write  letters  to  the 
newspapers  urging  schoolmasters  to  teach  their 
pupils  something  useful,  but  teachers  will  read  it 
with  lowering  brows.  They  have  been  accustomed 
to  think  that  their  business  is  to  instil  principles 
into  their  pupils,  and  see  that  they  learn  to  apply 
them  in  an  intelligent  way.  But  this  new  scheme 
claims  that  the  pupils  have  to  evolve  the  principles 
for  themselves,  and  further  that  this  evolution  is 
to  take  place  outside  the  school  altogether.  Those 
whom  the  Americans  call  the  "  proponents  "  of  the 
Project  Method  have  little  comfort  to  offer  the 
distressed  schoolmaster.  Indeed  they  go  out  of 
their  way  to  explain  that  it  is  time  that  he  should 
wake  up  out  of  his  philosophic  slumbers  and  "  get 
a  move  on."     They  explain  that  everybody  in  the 


234  The  Project  Method 

world  but  schoolmasters  follow  the  Project  Method 
as  a  matter  of  course,  but  that  these  content  them- 
selves with  theorising  about  and  over-systematising 
everything,  so  that  no  real  progress  can  ever  be 
made.  We  are  said  to  be  content  with  our  mill- 
horse  round,  and  initiative  is  not  in  us. 

The  teacher  with  open  mind  and  humble  heart 
may  be  constrained  to  admit  that  perhaps  there  is 
some  truth  in  this  general  indictment,  but  all  the 
same  he  cannot  get  rid  of  the  conviction  that  a 
certain  minimum  of  system  should  be  introduced 
into  his  teaching  work.  A  great  deal  of  what  may 
be  called  interstitial  learning  may  go  on  both  in 
school  hours  and  beyond  them,  but  most  teachers 
feel  that  it  is  an  essential  part  of  their  duty  to  see 
that  some  sort  of  order  dominates  the  whole  process 
of  directing  education.  To  this  extent  at  least 
they  agree  with  the  integralists,  and  are  disinclined 
to  buy  the  advantages  of  the  Project  Method  at 
the  price  of  forfeiting  this  minimum  of  system. 
Even  the  proponents  in  their  saner  moments  acknow- 
ledge the  necessity  for  this  fundamental  systematisa- 
tion,  for  they  admit  that  the  Method  should  be 
supplemented  by  some  sort  of  organisation  of  know- 
ledge. We  are  told  that  the  systematic  or  logical 
aspect  has  its  place,  and  through  attention  to  it  the 
pupil  will  be  supplied  with  additional  clues  to  aid 
him  in  prosecuting  his  enquiries.  One  of  the 
dangers  of  the  Method  is  that  it  is  apt  tcsget 
principles  tied  up  in  a  small  number  of  concrete 
examples,  each  valuable  in  itself,  but  the  whole 
needing  expansion  and  generalisation  if  the  pupil 
is  to  acquire  the  freedom  of  application  that  true 


The  Project  Method  235 

education  should  give.  All  this,  it  is  true,  is  not 
quite  consistent  with  what  we  have  just  read 
about  the  place  of  principles  in  relation  to  projects. 
But  with  a  growing  organisation  like  this  new 
Method,  we  must  be  prepared  for  a  certain  amount 
of  inconsistency,  if  we  compare  the  statements  of 
different  workers  in  the  field  of  exploration.  After 
all,  a  little  inconsistency  does  not  greatly  matter. 
The  important  point  is  that  those  interested  in  the 
new  development  are  thinking  as  they  go  along. 
Dr.  Stevenson  quotes  with  approval  a  hopeful 
view  expressed  by  Mr.  C.  R.  Mann  in  A  Study  of 
Engineering  Education  ■ : 

"  Although  the  suggestion  that  an  efficient  course  can 
be  constructed  as  a  series  of  apparently  disconnected 
projects  comes  as  a  shock  to  those  who  have  grown  up  with 
logically  rigorous  courses,  the  value  of  the  enthusiasm 
engendered  by  well-chosen  projects  must  not  be  overlooked. 
Our  most  valuable  information  and  training  come  from 
working  out  projects  that  are  really  worth  while  ;  and  if 
this  method  works  in  life,  why  not  in  school  ?  especially, 
since  in  educational  institutions  it  is  always  possible  to 
organise  significant  projects  into  a  connected  series  that 
leaves  a  well-developed  conception  of  the  whole  subject 
in  the  student's  mind." 

Mr.  Mann  certainly  acknowledges  handsomely 
the  need  for  a  systematic  view  or  a  complete  con- 
ception of  a  study  as  a  whole,  yet  the  ordinary 
professional  teacher  cannot  but  regard  the  above 
quotation  as  unduly  optimistic.  We  may  admit 
all  the  invigorating  power  of  the  interest  roused  by 

1  The  Carnegie  Foundation  for  the  Advancement  of  Edu- 
cation, p.  62. 


236  The  Project  Method 

practical  applications  to  things  worth  while.  But 
difficulties  do  not  disappear  as  a  result  of  the  airy 
rhetoric  of  the  passage  :  "  Why  not  in  school  ? 
forsooth !  "  The  English  teacher  could  give  a 
crushing  answer  in  one  word — Examinations.  We 
have  already  dealt  with  the  devastating  influence 
of  the  external  examination,  so  there  is  no  need  to 
labour  the  point  here.  But  even  if  we  enjoyed  the 
less  examination-ridden  conditions  of  the  United 
States,  our  teachers  would  still  regard  with  some 
suspicion  this  proposed  plan.  The  most  obvious 
objection  will  naturally  be  the  disturbance  of  the 
whole  school  organisation  as  far  as  the  curriculum  is 
concerned.  To  be  sure  our  English  attitude  towards 
the  curriculum  is  not  so  wise  as  it  might  be.  It 
has  been  a  standard  complaint  for  many  years  that 
we  are  inclined  to  treat  our  subjects  on  what  it  is 
popular  to  call  "  the  water-tight  compartment 
system  "  under  which  each  branch  of  study  is  kept 
rigidly  in  its  place  on  the  time-table,  and  each 
specialist  makes  a  point  of  strictly  minding  his  own 
business,  and  of  resenting  interference  by  incursions 
of  other  teachers  into  his  domain. 

To  get  rid  of  this  unwholesome  isolation,  the 
scheme  of  correlation  was  introduced,  by  which 
each  subject  was  deliberately  brought  into  touch 
with  others  more  or  less  cognate,  and  teachers  were 
invited  to  co-operate  with  one  another  to  organise 
their  courses  in  such  a  way  that  the  pupils  could 
be  led  to  see  the  interdependence  of  the  various 
subjects.  The  aim  of  the  reformers  was  excellent, 
and  the  execution  sometimes  resulted  in  success, 
but  there  was  a  tendency  to  go  to  extremes,  and 


The  Project  Method  237 


sometimes  the  curriculum  got  into  a  state  of 
inextricable  confusion.  All  the  subjects  got  mixed 
up  in  a  general  jumble.  Everybody  was  so  busy 
correlating  everything  to  everything  else,  that 
nobody  found  time  to  deal  with  fresh  and  indepen- 
dent matter.  The  inevitable  reaction  accordingly 
set  in  with  some  severity,  and  specialists  became 
more  than  before  determined  to  keep  to  their  own 
domain.  It  is  significant  when  a  writer  on  the 
teaching  of  history,  for  example,  feels  it  necessary 
to  remark  that  "  the  business  of  a  History  teacher 
is  to  teach  History." 

This  being  the  present  state  of  opinion  among 
teachers,  it  is  not  remarkable  that  they  look  askance 
at  a  method  that  would  once  more  throw  all  the 
subjects  into  a  common  pool.  The  Projectors,  as 
we  may  be  permitted  to  call  the  advocates  of  the 
new  method,  protest  that,  so  far  from  weakening 
the  interest  in  special  subjects  as  such,  it  will  so 
strengthen  the  interest  in  school  work  in  general  as 
to  lead  to  greater  attention  being  paid  to  the 
special  subjects.  Matters  that  are  usually  regarded 
as  having  no  practical  importance  apart  from  the 
school,  will  be  seen  to  be  capable  of  direct  and 
useful  application  to  outside  things  that  are  full 
of  practical  interest. 

The  introduction  of  the  idea  of  purpose  into  our 
school|work  is  certainly  to  be  encouraged ;  if  the  plan 
can  justify  its  claim  that  it  will  not  interfere  with 
the  systematic  work  of  the  school,  it  will  no  doubt 
be  successful  in  its  demand  for  recognition.  But 
the  practical  teacher  cannot  regard  with  equanimity 
the   proposal   to   introduce   what   are   called   big 


238  The  Project  Method 

projects  into  the  school  course.  He  can  admit  the 
value  of  the  small  project,  leading,  for  example,  to 
a  boy's  undertaking  to  build  a  rabbit  hutch,  or  to 
instal  an  electric  bell  system  into  his  home,  and 
he  can  see  how  the  school  studies  may  be  worked 
in  to  help  in  such  a  scheme.  If,  for  example,  a  boy 
forms  the  project  of  making  a  balloon  big  enough 
to  carry  his  weight,  it  is  obvious  that  he  will  need 
the  help  of  quite  a  number  of  his  school  subjects 
before  he  can  cut  out  his  material  and  provide 
the  necessary  gas.  Further,  such  schemes  fit  into 
the  Stevensonian  definition.  They  can  be  carried 
to  completion,  and  that  in  their  proper  setting. 
But  when  it  comes  to  large  projects  such  as  those 
suggested  by  Professor  Charles  A.  McMurry,  we 
get  a  little  out  of  our  depth.  He  is  inclined  to 
treat  the  project  retrospectively  or  historically, 
rather  than  as  a  project  in  the  living  present.  The 
Virginia  Plantation  was  no  doubt  a  living  project 
at  one  time,  and  so  was  the  Salt  River  irrigation 
scheme.  But  they  are  now  finished  with,  and  form 
a  part  of  history.  To  deal  with  them  is  to  deal 
with  mummified  projects,  which  after  all  may  be  no 
bad  thing.  Certainly  Dr.  McMurry  shows  how 
these  can  be  made  into  excellent  material  for  school 
use,  illustrating  a  great  many  principles  that  are  of 
high  educational  value.  English  teachers  will 
indeed  be  more  likely  to  accept  the  McMurry 
material  than  the  Stevensonian,  for  the  earlier 
writer  (McMurry)  makes  a  less  violent  attack  on 
the  established  order  of  things.  After  all,  mummies 
are  more  amenable  to  treatment  than  living  bodies, 
and  the  tracing  out  of  an  old  project — with  the 


The  Project  Method  239 

interpolation  of  practical  problems  by  an  intelligent 
teacher  throughout  the  process — can  be  made  a 
very  effective  way  of  giving  point  to  school  studies. 
Indeed  the  basis  of  the  McMurry  scheme  is  the 
big  unit  of  study  which  he  believes  to  be  the  best 
corrective  of  our  present  fragmentary  accumula- 
tions of  knowledge. 

There  is  something  very  attractive  in  the  idea  of 
a  school  staff  sitting  down  in  the  common  room  to 
make  a  plan  of  campaign  by  which  each  of  the 
specialists  will  undertake  to  give  such  a  bias  to 
the  presentation  of  his  specialty  as  will  supply  just 
the  information  necessary  to  carry  on  a  big  project 
such  as  the  building  of  the  Panama  Canal.  But 
difficulties  at  once  arise.  It  is  not  at  all  likely  that 
the  pupils  will  be  doing  during  that  term  in  each 
subject  just  the  sort  of  things  that  are  needed  for 
the  purposes  of  the  project.  No  doubt  arrange- 
ments could  be  made  in  advance,  for  the  "  big  unit  " 
would  certainly  be  selected  well  ahead  of  the  time 
at  which  the  project  was  to  be  set  on  foot.  In  this 
way  the  physics  curriculum  could  be  modelled  to 
suit  the  coming  requirements,  as  could  also  those  of 
Geography,  History,  Mathematics,  Nature  Study, 
and  others  concerned.  But  most  specialists  would 
violently  resent  this  dictating  of  the  order  in  which 
the  elements  of  their  subject  are  to  be  presented. 
There  will  arise,  in  fact,  in  an  acute  form,  the  familiar 
quarrel  between  the  supporters  of  the  logical  method 
and  the  supporters  of  the  psychological.  The 
ordinary  specialist  has  a  strong  preference  for  the 
logical  form  of  presentation.  He  likes  to  sit  down 
and  map  out  the  order  of  presentation  of  the  various 


240  The  Project  Method 


points  from  the  standpoint  of  clear  logical  sequence. 
If  he  be  a  trained  teacher,  or  one  who  has  made  a 
study  of  the  growing  mind,  he  may  feel  called  upon 
to  modify  his  neat  logical  arrangement  to  meet  the 
needs  of  the  immature  minds  of  his  pupils.  But  if 
he  is  asked  in  addition  to  introduce  changes  of  order 
so  as  to  make  it  possible  that  a  certain  piece  of 
external  work  may  be  completed  at  a  certain  fixed 
time,  he  is  apt  to  get  a  little  irritated,  and  he  may 
even  say  that  his  problem  has  passed  from  the 
stage  of  mere  difficulty  to  that  of  impossibility, 
since  he  is  now  asked  to  combine  in  one  process 
three  forces  that  have  no  organic  connection  with 
each  other. 

At  this  point  the  Projector  will  be  at  hand  to 
point  out  that  after  all  the  specialist  has  still  only 
two  fundamental  forces  to  deal  with — the  logical 
demands  of  the  subject  and  the  psychological 
demands  of  the  pupils.  For  the  conditions  imposed 
by  the  project  are  really  included  in  the  conditions 
that  determine  the  psychological  demands  of  the 
pupils,  and  it  is  because  this  is  so  that  the  project 
has  any  educational  value.  Further,  the  new 
demands  bring  with  them  more  than  their  own 
compensation,  for  the  pupils  will  now  come  to  their 
special  subjects  with  highly  increased  interest,  as 
they  expect  to  get  certain  pieces  of  definite  informa- 
tion of  which  they  stand  in  need.  Instead  of 
passively  imbibing  certain  abstractions  they  eagerly 
call  for  needed  help.  Proj  ectors  are  fond  of  pointing 
out  how  valueless  unappliable  knowledge  is  :  "  abor- 
tive "  is  their  favourite  adjective  here.  The 
characteristic  of  the  Project  Method  is  that  it  gives 


The  Project  Method  241 

life  to  all  the  knowledge  that  it  calls  forth.  Following 
this  method  the  teacher  does  not  first  impart  know- 
ledge and  then  seek  for  some  way  of  making  it 
useful :  he  begins  with  the  use  and  searches  for  the 
knowledge. 

The  practical  teacher,  fond  of  system,  argues  that 
this  is  excellent  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  wants  to  know 
what  is  to  become  of  the  organisation  of  the  subject. 
No  doubt  if  a  sufficient  number  of  radically  different 
projects  were  undertaken,  and  a  long  enough  period 
spent  over  each,  it  would  be  possible  in  the  ultimate 
resort  to  include  all  the  essential  parts  of  the  subject. 
But  time  would  fail,  to  cover  the  subject  in  this 
way.  Certain  branches  in  mathematics,  for  example, 
might  thus  never  come  under  the  pupil's  notice  at  all. 

We  are  here  faced  with  the  problem  of  the  random 
in  teaching.  Even  in  the  best-regulated  course  of 
instruction  there  is  a  certain  range  within  which  we 
fall  back  upon  the  random.  Our  illustrations  often 
belong  to  this  region.  In  giving  examples  of  the 
working  of  a  general  principle  it  is  often  highly 
desirable  to  make  your  selection  at  random,  in 
order  that  you  may  get  sufficient  variety.  At  the 
beginning  of  a  piece  of  exposition,  no  doubt,  it  is 
clearly  necessary  to  have  all  your  illustrations  care- 
fully selected  and  ready  to  be  brought  in  at  the  right 
moment.  But  when  the  position  has  been  made 
tolerably  clear  by  well-selected  examples,  the  pupil 
should  have  the  advantage  of  some  taken  at  random. 
In  getting  a  pupil  to  work  up  towards  a  general  rule, 
no  doubt  the  first  examples  should  be  deliberately 
chosen  so  as  to  point  in  the  direction  we  want  our 
pupil's  mind  to  take;  but  at  the  later  or  testing 
16 


242  The  Project  Method 

stages,  the  random  again  comes  into  its  own.  But 
even  if  we  admit  that  there  is  a  place  for  the  random 
in  ordinary  teaching,  the  orderly  minded  teacher 
will  find  it  very  hard  to  admit  that  this  place  is 
anywhere  but  at  the  illustrative  stage.  He  has 
always  been  told  that  his  matter  must  be  presented 
in  a  certain  definite  order,  any  deviation  from  which 
is  an  error.  Further,  he  is  particularly  alive  to  the 
danger  of  omissions  if  a  subject  is  not  approached 
in  an  orderly  way.  To  depend  upon  a  subject  being 
taught  en  passant  while  working  out  a  series  of 
problems,  seems  a  tempting  of  providence  in  the 
way  of  leaving  gaps  in  the  pupil's  knowledge.  But 
gaps  can  after  all  be  filled  at  a  later  stage  if  they 
are  found  to  be  important  enough  to  deserve  filling. 
For  it  has  to  be  remembered  that  if  in  the  working 
out  of  quite  a  number  of  projects  certain  elements 
in  a  particular  subject  have  not  been  touched,  it  is 
an  indication  that  these  omitted  elements  are  not  of 
the  first  importance,  though  of  course  this  conclusion 
is  not  logically  valid,  and  merely  expresses  a 
probability. 

The  Projectors  have  a  still  better  card  to  play  by 
indicating  that  there  is  something  to  be  said  posi- 
tively in  favour  of  the  direct  practical  and  apparently 
unsystematic  approach.  The  logical  arrangement 
of  a  subject  is  something  to  be  reached  rather  than 
something  from  which  a  process  can  begin  :  it  is  a 
goal  rather  than  a  starting-point.  Besides,  the 
logical  conception  of  the  subject  as  a  whole  may 
exist  in  the  teacher's  mind,  and  yet  be  quite  unsuit- 
able for  the  pupil's  mind,  till  sufficient  material  has 
been  acquired.     The  methodical  and  logical  teacher 


The  Project  Method  243 

can  quite  well  keep  account  of  all  the  gaps  that  are 
left  in  the  orderly  presentation  of  his  subject,  and 
make  sure  that  at  the  appropriate  moment  this  gap 
shall  be  filled,  and  its  content  explained  in  relation 
to  the  matter  which  had  been  picked  up  in  the 
irregular  way  involved  in  learning  by  the  project 
method. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  it  is  a  big  demand  on 
the  patience  of  a  tidy- minded  person  to  ask  him  to 
allow  the  minds  of  his  pupils  to  get  filled  up  in  the 
haphazard  way  that  goes  along  with  the  Project 
Method.  But  in  the  struggle  between  the  pupil 
and  the  subject  for  the  teacher's  interest  and 
sympathy,  it  is  now  generally  admitted  that  it  is 
the  pupil  who  ought  to  win.  The  goal  of  the 
educative  process  is  the  harmonious  blending  of  the 
knowing  mind  and  the  known  matter,  and  it  must 
never  be  forgotten  that  the  mind  is  a  unifying  influ- 
ence. Whatever  the  mind  seizes  it  assimilates, 
which  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  mind 
makes  acquired  knowledge  a  part  of  itself.  In  a 
literal  sense  it  is  of  course  impossible  for  what  is 
material  to  become  mental,  but  there  is  a  useful 
practical  truth  wrapped  up  in  the  phrase  that  "  fact 
becomes  faculty."  This  is  only  a  graphic  way  of 
saying  that  whatever  the  mind  works  upon  it  makes 
a  part  of  itself,  and  to  that  extent  the  mind  is 
slightly  different  from  what  it  was  before.  The 
boy  who  has  learnt  the  multiplication  table  is  to 
that  extent  a  different  boy  from  what  he  was 
before.  Accordingly,  a  boy  who  is  working  out  a 
project  is  by  that  very  fact  changing  his  nature  to 
a  greater  or  less  extent.     What  worries  the  anxious 


244  The  Project  Method 

and  methodical  teacher  is  whether  changes  produced 
in  the  irregular  way  that  accompanies  the  working 
out  of  a  project  will  necessarily  result  in  an  ill- 
regulated  mind.  We  are  probably  too  apt  to  under- 
estimate the  organising  tendency  of  the  mind  itself, 
and  to  think  there  must  be  confusion  within  because 
there  has  been  a  somewhat  promiscuous  presentation 
from  without. 

When  all  is  said,  however,  we  cannot  expect  an 
experienced  methodical  teacher  to  accept  without 
protest  a  plan  that  seems  to  cut  right  across  the 
ordinary  curriculum.  The  American  Projectors  are 
ready  with  their  answers  to  this  objection,  as  thus  : 
(i)  it  does  not  necessarily  cut  across  the  curriculum  ; 
(ii)  if  it  did,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  curriculum. 
Without  doubt  our  traditional  course  of  study  has  got 
stereotyped,  and,  further,  whatever  changes  do  take 
place  are  all  in  the  way  of  additions.  Everybody 
seems  eager  to  add  something  to  the  curriculum : 
few  appear  to  suggest  that  anything  should  be  re- 
moved. It  may  not  be  a  bad  service  that  the 
Projectors  do  by  raising  the  whole  question,  and 
demanding  a  re- examination  from  a  new  point  of 
view  of  the  content  of  our  education  course.  It 
may  be,  as  Dr.  Dewey  assures  us,  that  "  the  child 
and  the  curriculum  are  simply  two  limits  which 
define  a  single  process,"  but  it  is  hard  to  get  practical 
English  teachers  to  adopt  a  revolutionary  process 
on  the  strength  of  such  a  generalisation. 

Much  more  likely  to  succeed  is  Professor  Steven- 
son's approach  from  the  practical  side,  when  in  the 
last  chapter  of  his  book,1  he  shows  how  the  method 
1  The  Project  Method  of  Teaching,  p.  192. 


The  Project  Method  245 

can  be  actually  applied  to  the  different  subjects 
forming  a  part  of  our  present  curriculum.  When 
the  teacher  sees  how  a  dozen  real  academic  subjects 
can  be  treated  on  the  new  plan,  he  is  willing  to  look 
seriously  into  the  matter.  Dr.  Stevenson  is  true  to 
his  own  definition,  and  develops  real  projects,  that 
are  both  brought  to  completion  and  carried  on  in 
their  natural  environment.  It  is  doubtful,  however, 
whether  his  methods  would  be  altogether  popular 
among  English  officials  and  business  men.  For  the 
subject  of  English  is  here  socialised  with  a  ven- 
geance. It  appears  that  in  the  schools  where  Dr. 
Stevenson's  students  did  their  practice  work  in 
1919,  there  was  a  week  set  apart  for  propaganda  in 
favour  of  improved  English  in  the  school.  It  is 
called  Better  English  Week.  The  opportunity  was 
taken  of  making  this  a  project,  and  the  children 
were  called  upon  to  take  a  practical  part  in  the 
movement.  They  made  personal  calls  on  business 
people  in  the  town  to  discover  what  they  wanted 
from  the  schools  in  the  way  of  preparation  in 
English,  then  they  wrote  letters  broadcast  to 
officials  and  business  people  asking  what  qualities 
they  specially  desired  in  young  people  seeking 
appointments,  and  whether  English  bulked  large  in 
their  eyes.  Other  practical  methods  were  adopted, 
such  as  printing  and  exposing  posters,  inventing 
"  slogans "  in  favour  of  Good  English,  urging 
greater  attention  to  English,  discovering  the  most 
common  mistakes  in  English  (culled  from  both 
teachers  and  pupils)  and  making  them  prominent 
on  the  blackboard.  English  seems  rather  a  favourite 
subject  for  Project  treatment  across  the  water,  for 


246  The  Project  Method 

there  is  a  whole  book  l  published  on  the  subject  by 
Mr.  Wilbur  Hatfield,  in  which,  however,  the  appeal 
is  more  to  the  private  pupil  than  to  the  member  of 
a  class,  though  it  can  be  used  by  both.  All  manner 
of  situations  are  suggested  in  which  it  is  necessary 
to  use  English,  and  indications  given  of  how  to 
carry  out  the  individual  project.  Dr.  Stevenson's 
work  will  be  found  more  convincing  to  English 
teachers,  because  in  his  final  chapter  he  gives 
excellent  indications  how  the  method  can  be  applied 
to  the  existing  curriculum. 

American  teachers,  however,  do  not  seem  to  be 
in  a  mood  to  pay  too  much  attention  to  the  curri- 
culum as  it  stands.  They  have  the  idea  that  after 
all  the  curriculum  exists  for  the  child,  not  the 
child  for  the  curriculum.  They  are  highly  paido- 
centric  in  this  matter,  and  believe  that  there  is 
nothing  sacrosanct  about  the  present  content  of 
school  subjects.  Their  idea  is  to  bring  the  youngsters 
into  as  close  touch  as  possible  with  the  ordinary 
affairs  of  life.  Accordingly,  they  are  more  inclined 
to  plan  out  project  schemes  that  will  evolve  a 
curriculum  than  schemes  that  will  fit  into  what  at 
present  exists.  The  grip  the  Method  has  taken  of 
the  imagination  of  the  American  public  may  be 
estimated  by  the  fact  that  there  exists  now  a  School 
Project  Series,  under  the  editorship  of  Dean  W.  F. 
Russell  of  Iowa,  with  three  volumes  already  pub- 
lished, the  third  being  very  apposite  here.2  It  is 
by  Miss  M.  E.  Wells,  and  has  the  significant  title, 

1  Business  English  Projects. 

2  The  other  two  are  Projects  in  the  Primary  Grades  and 
The  Redirection  of  High  School  Instruction. 


The  Project  Method  247 

A  Project  Curriculum :  dealing  with  the  Project  as 
a  Means  of  Organising  the  Curriculum  of  the  Elemen- 
tary School.  Here  we  have  an  elaborate  treatise  in 
which  the  author  deliberately  sets  out  to  organise 
an  elementary  school  curriculum  based  on  various 
big  projects.  She  does  not  accept  the  true  Steven- 
sonian  doctrine,  for  her  projects  are  not  carried  to 
completion  in  their  natural  setting.  They  consist 
rather  of  parallels  to  real  outside  life  than  to  that 
life  itself,  a  sort  of  real  life  at  the  second  remove. 

Miss  Wells  boldly  adopts  the  Play  Way,  though 
she  does  not  appear  to  be  acquainted  with  Mr. 
Caldwell  Cook's  work.  Each  of  her  major  projects 
is  based  on  a  form  of  play  that  brings  the  youngsters 
into  close  touch  with  the  realities  of  life.  The 
introductory  project  consists  in  playing  at  holding 
a  fair,  which  is  quite  apposite,  since  it  appears  that 
they  have  an  annual  fair  at  Trenton,  New  Jersey, 
where  Miss  Wells'  Normal  School  is  situated.  The 
other  major  projects  are  for  Grade  One  Playing 
Families,  for  Grade  Two,  Playing  Store,  for  Grade 
Three,  Playing  City.  It  is  clear  that  here  we  have 
abundant  opportunity  of  socialising  the  academic 
elements  of  the  school  course,  and  Miss  Wells  works 
out  with  much  ingenuity  the  application  of  the 
various  subjects  to  the  needs  of  the  absorbing 
projects  that  make  an  almost  irresistible  appeal  to 
the  three  lower  grades.  Haying  worked  out  in  full 
the  application  of  the  method  to  the  first  three 
grades,  Miss  Wells  contents  herself  with  a  general 
outline  of  the  work  for  the  next  three  grades,  and 
then  proceeds  to  give  a  very  elaborate  account  of 
the  principles  underlying  the  curriculum  she  has 


248  The  Project  Method 

evolved,  and  to  make  theoretical  applications  to 
possible  practice. 

English  readers  are  likely  to  remain  unconvinced 
of  the  practicability  of  the  Method  as  applied  in 
the  higher  classes  in  school.  At  the  lower  levels  it 
seems  not  unreasonable  that  the  ordinary  school 
subjects  should  thus  be  taken  in  the  stride  of 
problem-solving  ;  but  when  the  curriculum  becomes 
more  elaborate,  it  seems  necessary  to  devote  definite 
attention  to  each  subject  as  an  organic  whole.  No 
doubt  we  keep  our  subjects  too  rigorously  apart  as 
things  stand,  and  the  proposed  method  will  do 
something  to  develop  a  better  understanding  of 
the  interrelations  of  the  various  branches  of  know- 
ledge. But  this  advantage  can  be  secured  by  a 
very  partial  adoption  of  the  Method  of  Projects, 
and  it  is  very  doubtful  how  far  we  can  ever  accept 
the  pure  Stevensonian  doctrine  of  "  natural  setting." 
No  doubt  the  decay  of  bookishness  will  make  it 
easier  to  move  in  the  direction  of  this  Project 
orthodoxy.  In  all  probability  it  may  be  possible 
to  adopt  one  big  (but  not  too  big)  project  each 
term  and  to  carry  it  out  on  Stevensonian  lines. 
This  will  be  enough  to  secure  all  the  good  the 
Method  can  offer,  and  this  concession  is  probably 
as  much  as  even  our  most  open-minded  British 
teachers  are  at  present  likely  to  make.  All  the 
same,  it  is  quite  evident  that  the  Method  is  directly 
in  the  line  of  current  progress,  and  fits  in  very 
comfortably  with  the  other  developments. 


CHAPTER    XI 

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS    IN    EDUCATION 

IN  a  book  concerned  primarily  with  practical 
developments  in  education  it  is  perhaps 
necessary  to  justify  the  inclusion  of  a  chapter  on 
psycho-analysis.  But  an  excellent  case  is  easily 
made  out.  Not  only  is  psycho-analysis  one  of  the 
most  widely  discussed  subjects  of  the  day,  but  it 
is  having  a  very  direct  bearing  on  educational  ideas 
and  is  thus  exercising  an  influence  on  the  work  of 
the  schools.  In  the  extensive  literature  on  the 
subject  we  find  continual  references  to  education. 
Turning,  for  example,  to  the  first  book  of  the  kind 
that  I  happen  to  take  up,  Mr.  J.  C.  Flugel's  The 
Psycho-analytic  Study  of  the  Family,  I  find  no 
fewer  than  eight  references  to  education  in  the 
index,  two  of  them  followed  by  the  ff.  that  indicates 
more  than  perfunctory  treatment.  The  psycho- 
analysts themselves  evidently  look  to  education  as 
one  of  the  most  likely  departments  for  the  exercise 
of  their  functions,  as  the  following  will  show  : 

"  A  new  science  and  application  of  pedagogy  are  being 
reared  upon  the  data  obtained  by  psycho-analysis,  as 
witness  the  masterly  work  of  Pfister  recently  published 
and  made  the  forerunner  of  an  important  series  of  works 
on  pedagogy  under  the  leadership  of  Meumann  and  Mess- 
mer."  » 

1  Jelifle,  The  Technique  of  Psycho-analysis  (1918),  p.  viii ; 
quoted  by  Knight  Dunlap. 

249 


250     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

That  the  new  views  are  taken  seriously  by  educa- 
tional reformers  may  be  seen  from  the  following 
quotation  from  Mr.  Norman  MacMunn  : 

"  The  believers  in  a  great  extension  of  freedom  for  the 
child  owe  much  gratitude  to  the  new  study  of  psycho- 
analysis. Not  only  have  the  evils  of  repression  been  traced 
and  relieved  by  the  removal  in  the  clinic  of  the  very  sup- 
pressions which  nearly  all  the  old-time,  and  many  of  the 
present-time,  schoolmasters  have  considered  it  their  duty 
to  encompass,  but  we  are  probably  on  the  eve  of  discoveries 
which  will  help  to  provide  a  rational  analytic  technique 
which  can  be  passed  on  for  the  use  of  the  teacher."  1 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  psycho-analysts 
should  turn  to  education,  for  this  is  the  region  in 
which  all  psychologies  find  room  for  hopeful  applica- 
tion. With  grown-up  people  there  is  always  the 
feeling  when  studying  psychology  that  it  is  too  late 
to  make  the  necessary  applications.  "  If  only  we 
had  known  this  or  that  fact  at  an  earlier  stage," 
we  are  apt  to  say,  "  how  differently  we  would  have 
acted ;  but  now  it  is  too  late."  When  we  turn 
to  education  we  enter  a  region  in  which  there  is 
still  time  for  the  psychologist  to  make  practical 
use  of  the  knowledge  he  has  acquired.  Too  late  for 
himself,  his  knowledge  is  still  available  for  the 
young  people  at  the  school  stage.  The  teacher  is 
in  a  position  to  make  practical  use  of  whatever 
psychology  has  to  give  him.  There  is  indeed  no 
lack  of  material  for  the  consideration  of  the  practical 
teacher  in  connection  with  the  newer  developments 
of  psychology.  We  have  such  books  as  W.  Lays 
The  Child's  Unconscious  Mind,  W,  Healy's  Mental 
1  The  Child's  Path  to  Freedom,  p.  16. 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     251 

Conflicts  and  Misconduct,  E.  Evans'  Problem  of  the 
Nervous  Child,  H.  H.  Goddard's  Juvenile  Delinquency, 
all  suggesting  a  very  direct  bearing  on  our  work  with 
the  young,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  they 
have  a  strong  bias  towards  the  abnormal.  But  when 
we  find  a  group  of  books  written  deliberately  at 
the  teacher's  address,  we  feel  that  it  is  time  to 
begin  to  take  notice.  Among  these  is  the  large  book 
on  The  Psycho-analytic  Method,  published  by  Oskar 
Pfister,  Pastor  and  Seminary  Teacher  at  Zurich. 
While  it  confessedly  deals  with  "  analytic  peda- 
gogics "  it  is  not  quite  so  useful  to  the  practical 
teacher  as  his  later  volume  on  Psycho-analysis  in 
the  Service  of  Education.  Dr.  Crichton  Miller  has 
recently  published  a  workmanlike  little  volume  on 
The  New  Psychology  and  the  Teacher.  But  most 
useful  of  all  for  the  practising  teacher  is  Mr.  G.  H. 
Green's  Psychanalysis  in  the  Class-room,  in  which 
we  have  the  subject  brought  into  direct  relation  with 
everyday  work  by  a  man  who  is  actually  engaged  in 
it.  In  addition  to  all  this,  psycho-analysis  has  been 
the  subject  of  endless  lectures  up  and  down  the 
country  and  a  subject  of  debate  at  all  manner  of 
conferences  of  teachers.  There  is  evidently  a  strong 
case  for  inviting  the  attention  of  the  practical  teacher 
to  this  new  and  apparently  important  development. 
To  begin  with,  we  must  note  that  psycho-analysis 
is,  properly  speaking,  a  method,  and  as  such  must  be 
distinguished  from  the  psychology  on  which  it  is 
based.  No  doubt  the  term  as  commonly  used  is 
made  to  cover  both  meanings,  with  the  result 
that  there  is  a  good  deal  of  confusion  in  the  dis- 
cussions that  we  hear  and  read.     For  teachers  the 


252     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

distinction  is  vital,  for  it  is  quite  possible  to  accept 
the  psychology,  and  to  act  upon  its  teachings, 
without  having  anything  to  do  with  the  method. 
Indeed,  the  intelligent  practical  teacher  who  keeps 
abreast  of  educational  literature,  cannot  but  be 
affected  by  the  prevailing  discussion  of  the  psy- 
chology, while  in  most  cases  he  is  resolute  in 
refusing  to  make  use  of  the  method  as  that  is  usually 
described. 

It  is  regrettable  that  there  is  no  generally  recog- 
nised name  for  the  psychology  on  which  psycho- 
analysis is  founded.  It  is  often  loosely  termed  the 
New  Psychology ;  but  at  the  present  day  psychology 
has  many  developments  that  have  no  connection 
with  psycho-analysis  as  such,  and  yet  may  fairly 
claim  the  title  new.  Collective  or  group  psychology, 
for  example,  is  quite  as  much  entitled  to  the  epithet 
as  is  the  psychology  usually  associated  with  the 
names  of  Freud  and  Jung.  Those  who  follow  Jung 
in  his  break  away  from  the  Freudian  school  have 
appropriated  the  term  Analytical  Psychology,  to 
which,  however,  they  have  no  just  claim,  since  it 
has  been  already  pre-empted  by  writers  who  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  psycho-analytical  position. 
G.  F.  Stout's  well-known  book  with  this  title  is 
enough  to  ward  off  a  claim  for  the  exclusive  use  of 
the  adjective  analytical  by  a  succeeding  school. 
Besides,  the  title  has  been  used  by  others,  notably 
by  Lightner  Witmer.  Under  these  circumstances, 
it  is  unseemly  to  usurp  a  term  that  after  all  does  not 
specifically  mark  off  the  Jungian  position,  while 
it  tends  to  perpetuate  the  confusion  between  the 
method  and  the  underlying  principles. 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     253 

The  best  title,  though  unfortunately  cumbrous, 
is  certainly  the  Psychology  of  the  Unconscious, 
for  this  indicates  precisely  the  point  at  which  the 
psycho-analysts  break  away  from  their  prede- 
cessors. Up  till  recent  years  psychology  could  be 
quite  accurately  described  as  the  study  of  conscious- 
ness. Of  late  it  has  become  fashionable  to  speak 
of  it  as  the  study  of  behaviour.  As  Professor  R.  S. 
Woodworth  tells  us  whimsically  in  a  footnote  to  his 
recently  published  Psychology  :  "First  Psychology 
lost  its  soul,  then  it  lost  its  mind,  then  it  lost  con- 
sciousness ;  it  still  has  behavour  of  a  kind."1  This 
transition  implies  a  new  view  of  the  whole  study. 
Hitherto  teachers  of  the  subject  had  a  rough-and- 
ready  way  of  distinguishing  between  a  physio- 
logical fact  and  a  psychological  one :  the  second 
fact  always  involved  consciousness,  the  first  did 
not.  The  old-fashioned  psychologist  in  fact  postu- 
lated the  equation : 

The  psychological  =  the  conscious. 

The  men  who  have  developed  the  psycho-analytical 
method  regard  this  equation  with  contempt,  and  in 
their  writings  are  continually  gibing  at  it.  They 
hold  that  of  the  non-material  processes — mental, 
spiritual,  psychic,  call  them  what  you  will — only 
a  minute  portion  are  present  in  consciousness,  and 
that  a  man's  actions  are  determined  by  spiritual 
forces  of  which  he  has  no  direct  or  immediate  know- 
ledge. There  is,  in  fact,  a  great  region  commonly 
called  by  the  new  experts  "  the  unconscious,"  some- 
times irreverently  contracted  by  the  younger  psycho- 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  2. 


254     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

analysts  into  the  familiar  "  unc,"  where  originate 
far  more  of  our  apparently  reasoned  actions  than 
is  consistent  with  our  proud  claim  to  rank  under  the 
heading  homo  sapiens. 

The  line  that  marks  off  the  conscious  from  the 
unconscious  part  of  our  spiritual  experience  may 
be  called  the  threshold  of  consciousness.  This  telm 
is  familiar  to  those  who  are  acquainted  with  the 
Herbartian  terminology,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact 
there  is  a  much  closer  connection  between  the  Herbar- 
tian Psychology  and  the  Freudian  than  is  commonly 
recognised.  For  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
Sigmund  Freud,  the  now  well-known  Vienna  mental 
specialist,  was  the  first  to  make  the  plunge  into  the 
unconscious.  The  way  was  prepared  for  him.  It  is 
true  that  the  pessimistic  Georg  von  Hartmann  was 
less  of  a  psychologist  than  a  philosopher,  and  gave 
little  help  in  his  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious. 
But  Herbart  and  Beneke  did  erect  signposts  that 
could  not  fail  to  guide  their  successors  into  the 
realm  of  the  unconscious.  No  one  can  study  the 
peculiar  mechanism  of  the  ideas  as  they  work  in  the 
Herbartian  scheme  without  noting  the  close  connec- 
tion between  his  theory  and  that  of  the  Freudians, 
though  they  approached  the  problem  from  the 
medical  standpoint,  while  he  came  to  it  from  the  edu- 
cational. Even  the  terminology  is  there  ready  made 
waiting  for  the  new-comers,  needing  nothing  but  a 
little  elaboration.  The  fight  of  the  ideas  for  a  place 
in  consciousness  is  no  doubt  nothing  more  than  a 
figure  of  speech,  but  it  represents  with  sufficient 
exactness  just  what  the  psycho-analysts  need  for  the 
mechanism  of  repression  and  suppression.     In  both 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     255 

theories  the  point  is  made  that  only  a  very  small 
portion  of  our  potential  ideas  have  a  place  at  any 
time  in  our  consciousness,  and  it  is  obvious  that 
apperception-mass  is  only  complex  writ  large,  and 
without  the  sinister  meaning  Freudians  now  attach 
to  the  term. 

The  Freudians  are  as  fond  of  metaphors  as  the 
Herbartians,  and  the  iceberg  is  one  of  their  favour- 
ites. It  is  well-known  that  only  a  small  portion 
of  the  mass  of  an  iceberg  appears  above  the  surface. 
It  is  the  submerged  part  that  corresponds  to  the 
content  of  the  unconscious.  Of  the  millions  of 
ideas  that  experience  has  given  us  the  potentiality 
of  recalling  to  our  consciousness,  only  a  tiny  fraction 
can  be  present  in  the  consciousness  at  any  one  time. 
The  remaining  potential,  but  for  the  time  unrealised, 
ideas  form  the  submerged  portion  of  the  iceberg, 
and  sometimes  exercise  an  important  but  often  un- 
recognised effect  on  the  life  of  the  person  concerned. 
An  iceberg  is  sometimes  observed  floating  along  in 
the  teeth  of  the  wind.  The  explanation  is  that  there 
is  a  current  underneath  the  surface  running  in  a 
direction  contrary  to  that  of  the  wind  ;  and  since 
the  mass  underneath  the  water  is  much  greater  than 
that  above  it,  the  current  has  the  advantage,  and 
causes  the  apparently  inexplicable  movement  in 
the  teeth  of  the  wind.  S67we  are  told,  people  some- 
times seem  to  act  in  a  perfectly  inexplicable  way, 
since  we  seek  for  the  explanation  among  the  ideas 
in  consciousness,  whereas  the  dominant  forces  are 
in  the  unconscious. 

The  figure  is  a  useful  expository  device,  but  fails 
in  two    directions.     First    the  ratio    between  the 


256     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

exposed  and  the  submerged  parts  is  ridiculously 
wrong.  A  ninth  part  or  so  of  the  iceberg  is  exposed, 
but  only  a  minute  fraction  of  the  total  number  of 
potential  ideas  can  appear  in  the  consciousness  at 
the  same  time.  A  still  more  serious  discrepancy 
is  to  be  found  in  the  static  nature  of  the  relation  be- 
tween the  two  parts  of  the  iceberg.  The  submerged 
portion  remains  inert,  whereas  some  at  least  of  the 
ideas  that  are  at  any  given  moment  under  the  thres- 
hold of  consciousness  are  in  a  state  of  vigorous 
ferment.  In  Herbartian  phraseology  certain  ideas 
are  under  the  dynamical  threshold,  which  means  that 
though  they  are  at  present  in  the  unconscious,  they 
are  either  on  their  way  into  consciousness  or  have 
just  come  out  of  it.  In  any  case  they  are  exercising 
an  influence  on  what  is  going  on  in  consciousness. 
It  is  this  influence  exercised  by  the  content  of  the 
unconscious  that  justifies  the  psycho-analysts  in 
attaching  great  importance  to  the  unconscious. 

They  sometimes  speak  of  the  Titan  within  us, 
the  figure  implying  that  as  the  result  of  previous 
personal,  and  even  racial,  experience  there  exists  in 
the  unconscious  a  mass  of  more  or  less  organised 
ideas  and  impulses  that  lead  to  disturbances  now  and 
again  within  the  consciousness  itself,  just  as  the 
fabled  Titans  used  to  cause  eruptions  and  earth- 
quakes among  the  mountains  that  had  been  heaped 
upon  them  to  keep  them  out  of  mischief.  What  dis- 
pleases the  practical  teacher  in  this  figure  is  the 
implication  that  the  contents  of  the  unconscious 
are  necessarily  evil.  Just  as  the  term  suggestion  is 
almost  invariably  used  in  a  bad  sense,  though  the 
process  itself  may  be  equally  well  used  for  good  and 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     257 

for  evil,  so  there  is  a  general  assumption  that  the 
things  we  store  up  in  the  unconscious  are  all  unde- 
sirable things.  For  their  comfort,  teachers  should 
realise  that  while  the  unconscious  contains  the 
paid-up  capital  of  the  experience  of  their  pupils,  it 
includes  all  the  good  as  well  as  all  the  evil  effects  of 
that  experience.  The  trouble  is  that  here,  as  else- 
where, we  take  the  good  for  granted,  and  concentrate 
our  attention  on  the  evil,  because  of  its  troublesome 
qualities.  Since  psycho-analysts  themselves  are 
nearly  always  concerned  with  pathological  cases,  it  is 
natural  that  they  should  pay  special  attention  to 
the  causes  of  abnormal  states.  Their  books  make 
painful  reading.  After  examining  a  number  of 
their  cases,  one  gets  the  impression  that  the  uncon- 
scious of  our  pupils  is  a  seething  mass  of  corruption. 
Even  when  an  educational  expert  like  Oskar  Pfister 
deals  with  the  subject,  he  tends  towards  the  gloomy 
side,  and  neglects  the  cheerful,  and,  after  all,  the 
normal  side. 

It  has  to  be  admitted  that  we  have  all  animal 
tendencies  that  in  decent  society  cannot  be  allowed 
to  develop.  We  must  repress  them,  but  this  repres- 
sion is  not  in  itself  an  unwholesome  process,  and 
need  not  lead  to  evil  consequences.  We  are  told 
that  repression  leads  to  suppression,  and  that 
suppression  may  be  unnatural  and  dangerous.  The 
Titan  within  us  may  occasionally  waken  up  and 
turn  in  his  uncomfortable  bed  with  disastrous  conse- 
quences. But  is  it  inevitable  that  there  should  be 
this  upheaval  ?  Is  the  state  of  suppression  neces- 
sarily unwholesome  ?  Do  not  the  great  majority  of 
human  beings  go  through  life  without  any  of  these 
17 


258     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

violent  crises  ?  We  must  keep  reminding  ourselves 
that  it  is  only  the  exceptional  that  finds  its  way  into 
the  sensational  newspapers,  and  even  into  the  case- 
books of  mental  specialists.  Besides,  what  is  the 
alternative  to  repression  ?  If  we  are  not  to  repress, 
are  we  to  encourage  ?  Sometimes  in  reading  psycho- 
analytic literature  one  is  tempted  to  believe  that 
a  strictly  limited  yielding  to  natural  impulses  might 
be  the  best  way  of  maintaining  the  desired  equili- 
brium— leading  to  the  policy  of  the  safety  valve, 
and  justifying  the  morality  of  sowing  one's  wild 
oats.  Under  all  this  lurks  the  deadly  danger  of 
using  nature  to  justify  our  an ti- social  tendencies. 
Whatever  is  natural  cannot  be  wrong,  is  a  very 
plausible  argument  that  tends  to  smooth  the  way 
of  worthy  but  easy-going  persons  who  want  to  pass 
from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  along  the  line  of  least 
resistance.  Why  should  they  struggle,  and  in 
particular  what  should  they  struggle  against  ? 

By  whatever  name  it  is  known,  there  is  an  impelling 
force  within  each  of  us,  a  force  that  we  all  recognise 
though  we  may  differ  greatly  in  the  way  in  which 
we  evaluate  it.  Under  most  of  its  names  it  sounds 
wholesome  enough :  urge,  will-to-live,  elan  vital, 
horme — there  is  nothing  to  disturb  us  here,  nothing 
against  which  we  must  fight.  It  is  only  when  the 
Freudians  come  along  with  their  libido  and  its 
sinister  connotation  that  we  begin  to  have  our 
doubts.  To  be  sure,  they  profess  to  rob  it  of  its 
baser  meaning  and  to  generalise  it  in  the  direction 
of  the  force  indicated  by  the  more  harmless  names. 
But  when  all  is  said  the  Freudians  retain  sex  as  the 
principal  element  in  the  life  urge,  though  it  has  to 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     259 

be  admitted  that  they  give  a  wider  than  usual 
interpretation  to  sex  in  their  descriptions  of  the 
function  of  the  vital  force.  But  in  the  last  resort  it 
is  clear  that  sex  remains  the  master  force,  and  critics 
are  perhaps  justified  in  the  sarcasm  they  heap  on 
this  obsession.  Professor  Knight  Dunlap,  of  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  in  his  Mysticism,  Freudianism, 
and  Scientific  Psychology,  scoffs  at  the  sex  mania  of 
the  Freudians,  suggesting  that  they  will  no  doubt 
reduce  even  mathematics  to  a  sexual  basis,  adding 
in  a  footnote:  "The  expected  has  happened. 
Since  the  above  was  written,  Birdwood's  Sex  Ele- 
ments in  the  First  Five  Books  of  Euclid  has  risen 
above  the  horizon."  ■ 

Obviously  the  libido  in  the  Freudian  sense  must 
be  opposed  at  least  to  the  extent  of  moderating  its 
full  force,  and  it  may  be  granted  at  once  that  the 
vital  driving  power,  however  described,  demands 
guidance  and  restraint  in  some  form  or  other.  Sex 
itself  occupies,  whether  we  will  or  no,  an  important 
place  in  all  normal  lives,  and  has  therefore  to  be 
taken  into  account,  even  by  those  who  deny  its 
paramount  importance.  Other  influences,  however, 
have  also  to  be  considered.  Alfred  Adler,  for 
example,  regards  the  vital  urge  as  taking  the  form 
in  most  cases  of  love  of  power  ;  others  are  in  favour 
of  the  herd  instinct  and  imitation  as  the  ruling 
forces.  The  important  point  is  that  whatever  be 
regarded  as  the  ultimate  source  of  power,  it  is 
admitted  that  the  individual  can  control  it  to  the 
extent   of   inhibiting   its    action    at   inconvenient 

1  Op,  cit.,  p.  45. 


260     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

moments.     The  problem  remains  of  the  price  to  be 
paid  for  the  exercise  of  this  control. 

W.  H.  R.  Rivers  makes  a  useful  distinction 
between  repression  and  suppression.  When  elements 
have  been  thrust  out  of  consciousness  into  the 
unconscious  so  that  they  remain  permanently  in 
the  unconscious  they  are  said  to  be  suppressed, 
whether  the  ejection  from  consciousness  has  been 
deliberate  or  unwitting,  and  whether  it  has  been 
caused  by  ourselves  or  by  others.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  deliberate  or  witting  ejection  by  ourselves 
of  elements  from  consciousness  is  repression.  Thus 
of  the  suppressed  elements,  only  a  portion  have  been 
ejected  from  consciousness  by  repression.  It  is 
highly  desirable  for  all  concerned  that  certain 
elements  should  be  repressed,  and  it  is  indeed  whole- 
\^some  that  each  of  us  should  have  quite  a  large  body 
of  suppressed  elements.  Yet  there  appears  to  be 
always  a  danger  that  on  their  way  to  suppression 
some  elements  may  get  dissociated  from  their 
appropriate  effective  accompaniments,  and  this  may 
lead  to  trouble.  There  may  arise  a  festering  among 
the  suppressed  elements  that  sets  up  unwholesome 
reactions  in  experience — fears,  inordinate  desires, 
unreasonable  loves  and  hates,  incapacity  for  certain 
activities.  In  face  of  such  troubles  different 
practitioners  adopt  different  methods.  Sigmund 
Freud  seeks  for  the  source  of  trouble  in  some  of  the 
earliest  experiences  of  the  patient.  His  glance  is 
always  turned  backward  to  the  infantile  period, 
and  generally  finds  some  complex  that  owes  its 
origin  to  an  early  sex  complication.  Carl  G.  Jung, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  inclined  to  look  for  the  cause 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     261 

in  something  connected  with  current  affairs,  and 
looks  for  the  trouble  in  the  present.  He  finds  that 
the  dreams  of  the  patient  symbolise  the  source  of 
the  trouble,  and  by  a  correlation  of  the  dreams  with 
the  events  of  ordinary  life  he  seeks  to  get  at  the 
complex  that  is  causing  the  disturbance.  Alfred 
Adler  for  his  part  is  inclined  to  project  himself  into 
the  future  in  search  of  the  cause  of  the  complex. 
He  thinks  that  it  is  fear  of  the  future  that  is  making 
the  patient  anxious. 

From  the  teacher's  standpoint  there  is  a  good 
deal  to  recommend  Adler' s  view  of  the  vital  urge. 
He  approached  the  subject  from  the  physiological 
standpoint,  and  reached  his  psychological  position 
through  the  work  he  had  done  in  investigating  organ 
inferiority.     He  emphasised  the  fact  that  when  any 
organ  decays  or  suffers  injury,  the  rest  of  the  system 
sets  itself  to  protect  the  weak  member,  and  to  lighten 
its  work  as  much  as  possible.     The  resulting  psycho- 
logical attitude  is  represented  by  the  name  Adler 
chose  for  his  particular  brand  of  psychology.     But 
his  name   "  individual  psychology  "    has  not  been 
generally  accepted,  and  the  thing  it  represents  has 
obtained  little  vogue.     It  emphasises  the  love  of 
power  as  the  characteristic  of  the  vital  urge,  which, 
however,  need  not  be  exercised  in  the  Tamerlane 
vein.     More  often  it  takes  the  form  of  dominating 
others  by  playing  upon  our  own  weakness,  using  it 
as  a  sort  of  weapon,  as  in  the  case  of  those  who 
tyrannise  over  others  by  the  right  of  invalidism.     Its 
negative  side  is  shown  in  the  desire  for  security. 
It  often  takes  the  form  of  a  desire  to  escape  from 
the  responsibilities  of  life.     It  leads  to  the  desire 


262     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

to  be  a  centre  of  attention,  and  thus  a  love  of  the 
limelight  is  one  of  its  symptoms. 

Many  people  regard  all  this  talk  about  the  Slan 
vital  and  the  rest  as  intolerably  abstract  and  vague. 
They  want  a  scientific  statement.  They  want  more 
than  the  description  of  a  process ;  they  desire  a 
knowledge  of  what  it  is  that  proceeds :  in  other 
words,  they  want  to  know  what  is  the  subject  of 
the  verb  proceed  in  this  connection.  Accordingly, 
there  are  those  who  look  with  hope  to  the  work  of  a 
new  writer,  Dr.  Edward  J.  Kempf,  of  St.  Elizabeth's 
Hospital,  Washington,  D.C.,  who  in  the  Journal  of 
Nervous  and  Mental  Disease,  August  1919  and 
January  1920,  and  in  Monograph  28  of  the  Nervous 
and  Mental  Disease  Series,  sets  out  a  theory  of 
dynamic  mechanism.  His  general  position  is  indi- 
cated by  the  following  statement  of  one  of  his 
admirers  : 

"  In  order  to  explain  the  great  physiological  changes 
which  influence  human  thought  and  behavour  and  the  bio- 
logical nature  of  man,  Kempf  has  developed  a  conception 
of  the  personality  based  on  the  reflex  actions  of  the  auto- 
nomic nervous  system."  1 

But  when  we  trace  this  physiologist  to  his  lair 
we  find  a  very  difficult  and  not  very  convincing 
terminology  that  does  not  seem  in  the  meantime  to 
lead  anywhere  in  particular. 

After  going  through  a  great  many  books  on 
psycho-analysis  the  reader  will  gather,  though  the 
principle  is  rarely  stated  with  any  definiteness,  that 
we  run  great  danger  by  repressing  natural  tendencies, 

1  Andr6  Tridon,  Psycho-analysis  and  Behaviour,  p.  332. 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     263 

unless  we  realise  what  we  are  doing.  The  psycho- 
analysts appear  to  be  much  more  interested  in 
describing  symptoms  than  in  effecting  cures ;  but 
when  they  do  turn  their  attention  to  cures  they 
appear  to  depend  on  consciousness  much  in  the 
same  way  as  ordinary  medical  men  depend  on  fresh 
air.  They  appeal  from  the  unconscious  to  the  con- 
scious, and  regard  it  as  almost  axiomatic  that  as 
soon  as  a  dangerous  complex  has  been  brought 
from  the  unconscious  into  the  wholesome  field  of  the 
conscious  its  evil  effects  disappear.  Their  method 
accordingly  consists  in  a  process  of  probing  the 
unconscious  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  its  dangerous 
contents  into  the  healing  range  of  the  conscious. 

In  this  process  the  analyst  has  a  hostile  force  to 
face  in  the  censor  that  the  Freudian  metaphor 
supplies  to  the  soul.  This  figure  personifies  the 
force  that  keeps  the  elements  in  their  proper  place 
and  prevents  them  from  escaping  from  the  limbo 
of  the  unconscious.  The  analyst's  business  is  to 
pacify  this  cerberus,  in  order  to  allow  free  passage 
into  consciousness  of  elements  that  are  proving 
deleterious  and  that  cannot  be  rendered  harmless 
till  they  are  brought  to  consciousness.  By  winning 
the  confidence  of  the  subject  and  then  encouraging 
him  to  speak  quite  freely  on  whatever  matters 
come  into  his  mind,  following  easily  and  without 
effort  whatever  line  association  takes  of  its  own 
accord,  the  observer  is  able  to  elicit  a  certain  number 
of  apparently  unimportant  facts  that  he  can  utilise 
in  reconstructing  the  past  experience  of  the  patient. 
Occasionally  there  is  a  sharp  break  in  the  associa- 
tion :    the  patient  suddenly  stops,  or  changes  the 


264     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

subject  abruptly.  These  balks  so  far  from  inter- 
fering with  the  analyst's  purpose  are  his  aids. 
They  indicate  a  resistance,  and  show  that  the  censor 
has  suddenly  awaked  to  a  sense  of  his  duties  and 
does  his  best  to  prevent  further  escapes  in  regard 
to  the  matter  that  happens  to  have  aroused  him. 
The  analyst,  however,  has  had  his  hint,  and  it  is 
his  business  so  to  lull  the  censor  that  at  some  other 
time  the  bar  may  be  lifted  and  the  troublesome 
matter  brought  to  light. 

The  dream  is  regarded  as  the  analyst's  friend,  for 
during  sleep  the  censor  is  assumed  to  be  a  little  off 
his  guard,  and  more  inclined  to  let  dangerous  ideas 
pass,  if  only  they  have  the  decency  to  disguise 
themselves  a  little.  That  is  why  our  dreams  are 
so  fantastic.  Freud's  view,  as  everybody  knows, 
is  that  all  our  dreams  are  the  expression  of  an 
unfulfilled  wish.  What  we  cannot  get  in  real  life 
we  secure  to  ourselves  in  dreams.  There  is  no 
doubt  an  element,  a  strong  element,  of  truth  in 
this  view,  but  it  does  not  exhaust  all  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  case,  and  other  investigators  have 
supplementary  views.  It  is  generally  admitted, 
however,  that  dreams  do  have  a  more  or  less  direct 
connection  with  our  waking  experience,  and  there- 
fore may  give  valuable  information  about  our 
mental  content  to  anyone  who  has  the  skill  to 
analyse  them.  Accordingly,  the  interpretation  of 
dreams  has  taken  on  a  scientific  aspect  and  become 
a  regular  part  of  the  psycho-analyst's  work,  and 
cautious  people  are  not  so  fond  of  telling  their 
dreams  at  breakfast  time  as  once  they  were. 

Obviously  with  all  the  elaborate  methods  of  the 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     265 

psycho-analyst  the  teacher,  as  such,  has  nothing  to 
do.     Not  only  do  they  demand  a  technical  training 
that  no  practising  teacher  can  hope  to  attain,  but 
they  involve  an  expenditure  of  time  in  their  appli- 
cation that  puts  them  for  ever  beyond  the  reach 
of    ordinary    professional    teachers.     But    certain 
incidental  applications  of  psycho-analysis  may  be 
made  by  all  teachers.     Indeed  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  most  teachers  have  practised  a  sort  of 
rudimentary  psycho-analysis  from  time  immemorial. 
A  wise  old  schoolmaster  of  my  acquaintance  used 
to  say  that  we  are  all  psychologists  more  or  less. 
His   remark  may  well  be   extended   to   psycho- 
analysis.    Every  time  that  we  set  ourselves  to  find 
the  motive  for  an  unintelligible  act  of  one  of  our 
pupils  we  are  embarking  on  a  rudimentary  bit  of 
psycho-analysis.     But  there  is  all  the  difference  in 
the  world  between  this  easy  and  incidental  investi- 
gation and  the  serious  and  detailed  analysis  of  the 
new  experts.     Full  analysis  of  this  kind  involves 
the  relation  of  doctor  and  patient,  and  ought  to 
carry  with  it  the  intelligent  consent  of  the  patient. 
Indeed  it  is  fortunately  the  case  that  without  this 
consent  it  is  impossible  to  psycho-analyse  in  the 
formal  way.     Even  when  the  method  is  applied  to 
the  detection  of  crime,  the  accused's  consent  is 
necessary  before  a  beginning  can  be  made.     All 
the  supposed  criminal  need  do  is  to  remain  silent. 
No  doubt  when  full  physical  control  of  the  patient 
is  obtained,  physical  tests  may  be  applied  that  give 
material  for  inferences  with  regard  to  mental  states. 
But  these  are  of  doubtful  value,  and  are  in  any  case 
beyond  the  pale  of  educational  investigations. 


266     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

What,  then,  is  to  be  the  teacher's  attitude  towards 
the  psychology  of  the  unconscious  ?  To  begin  with, 
he  ought  to  know  it.  Whatever  may  be  thought 
about  the  technical  application  of  the  new  form  of 
analysis,  the  teacher  ought  to  be  aware  of  what 
has  been  done  in  the  way  of  developing  the  new 
doctrine  of  the  unconscious.  It  is  his  business  to 
know  his  pupils  as  thoroughly  as  possible,  and  he 
cannot  afford  to  neglect  a  whole  reservoir  of  the 
pupil's  experience.  The  content  of  the  unconscious 
is  an  essential  part  of  the  pupil's  nature,  and  must 
be  known  in  a  general  way  if  the  pupil  is  to  be 
intelligently  handled.  But  a  distinction  must  be 
drawn  between  two  different  aspects  of  the  uncon- 
scious, the  psychological  and  the  biographical.  The 
teacher  is  entitled  to  find  out  as  much  as  he  can 
about  the  unconscious  of  his  pupils  so  long  as  his 
interest  is  in  the  paid-up  capital  of  experience  that 
is  there  to  be  found.  The  youngster's  present 
nature  is  what  it  is  because  of  what  he  has  experi- 
enced, and  anything  that  helps  to  make  clear  what 
the  result  of  that  experience  has  been  is  a  legitimate 
subject  for  investigation  by  the  teacher.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  has  no  right  to  pry  into  the  biography 
of  the  pupil.  Whatever  comes  out  naturally  in 
social  intercourse  may  be  legitimately  used  by  the 
teacher.  But  he  must  not  go  out  of  his  way  to 
probe  so  as  to  discover  biographical  details  that  are 
not  presented  to  him  spontaneously.  It  may  be 
argued,  no  doubt,  that  the  teacher's  relation  to  his 
pupils  is  of  a  very  exceptional  kind,  and  warrants  a 
closer  inquisition  than  is  permissible  to  others.  He 
is  in  loco  parentis,  and  exists  professionally  for  no 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     267 

other  purpose  than  the  good  of  the  pupil,  and 
therefore  is  entitled  to  make  all  sorts  of  investiga- 
tion that  would  be  illegitimate  for  others. 

The  argument  is  plausible,  but  will  not  carry 
conviction  so  long  as  we  are  dealing  with  ordinary 
wholesome  children  who  are  healthy  both  in  body 
and  in  mind,  and  when  we  come  to  cases  that  are 
pathological  we  enter  a  field  that  does  not  belong 
to  the  ordinary  professional  teacher.  It  is  difficult 
to  see  why  anyone  should  psycho-analyse  normal 
children  under  any  circumstances ;  but  psycho- 
analysts seem  to  think  that,  so  long  as  they  deal 
with  only  healthy  children,  psycho-analysis  is 
legitimate  for  all.  Thus,  in  an  effort  to  be  scrupu- 
lously careful  of  the  children's  interests  Oskar 
Pfister  writes  : 

"  Direct  analysis  of  healthy  children  lies  entirely  in  the 
domain  in  which  the  educator  alone  has  the  responsibility. 
This  is  a  reason  for  us  to  be  particularly  cautious.  We 
have  no  right  to  try  all  manner  of  experiments  on  the 
children  committed  to  our  care.  The  only  right  we  have  is 
to  help  them  to  become  good  and  capable  men.  My 
reason  for  uttering  these  well-worn  truths  in  this  place 
is  that  evil  tongues  have  not  hesitated  to  affirm  that  psycho- 
analysts analyse  here,  there  and  everywhere,  without 
caring  about  the  consequences."  s 

It  is  not  clear  whether  healthy  in  this  passage 
applies  only  to  physical  condition.  If  it  includes 
mental  as  well  as  bodily  health,  there  seems  no 
reason  why  the  children  should  be  analysed  at  all. 
Psycho-analysis  is  surely  not  to  be  regarded  as  a 

1  Psycho-analysis  in  the  Service  of  Education,  p.  157. 


268     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

matter  of  routine  in  the  New  Education,  like 
sounding  the  lungs  or  taking  the  pulse  at  a  school 
medical  examination. 

No  doubt  the  intelligent  teacher  interested  in  his 
pupils  will  from  day  to  day  learn  incidentally  a 
great  deal  about  his  pupils'  minds.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  he  will  probably  learn  a  great  deal  that  his 
youngsters  do  not  wish  him  to  learn,  for  they  are 
continually  "  giving  themselves  away "  in  the 
presence  of  a  keen  and  sympathetic  observer.  The 
kind  of  mistakes  they  make  in  ordinary  written  and 
oral  work  often  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  dark 
places,  and  the  teacher  is  entitled  to  all  the  help  he 
can  get  in  this  way.  The  study  of  Freud's  Psycho- 
pathology  of  Everyday  Life  and  Drever's  Psychology 
of  Everyday  Life  will  be  found  useful  to  the  teacher, 
by  training  him  what  to  expect,  and  how  to  interpret 
the  ordinary  reactions  of  school  intercourse.  So 
long  as  the  teacher  allows  the  light  of  ordinary 
experience  to  play  upon  his  pupils  just  as  circum- 
stances direct,  he  is  in  a  perfectly  safe  position. 
The  trouble  begins  when  he  sets  about  arranging 
circumstances  so  that  certain  revelations  are  likely 
to  be  made.  For  here  we  have  a  mild  form  of 
technical  psycho-analysis,  for  which,  however,  the 
professors  of  the  new  type  are  in  no  way  responsible, 
since  the  plan  has  been  followed  for  centuries  by 
generations  of  teachers  who  had  no  idea  that  they 
were  using  anything  more  formidable  than  intelligent 
common  sense,  with  the  addition  maybe  of  a  little 
cunning  of  doubtful  moral  standing. 

The  problem  may  become  a  little  more  definite 
if  we  put  the  question  :  *  Is  a  teacher  who  has  made 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     269 

some  study  of  psycho-analysis  in  a  better  position 
for  finding  out  what  is  going  on  in  the  minds  of  his 
pupils  than  was  the  able  and  perhaps  cunning  teacher 
of  centuries  ago  ?  The  appropriate  answer  appears 
to  be  an  emphatic  yes.  Even  without  applying  any 
of  the  technical  methods  such  as  free  or  directed 
association,  or  time  reaction,  the  modern  teacher  who 
is  acquainted  with  this  subject  is  in  a  better  position 
to  study  his  pupils  with  advantage  than  was  his 
forerunner  of  the  pre-psycho- analytical  times.  He 
knows  what  sort  of  things  to  look  for  ;  he  knows  that 
the  pupil  may  with  perfect  honesty  give  a  wrong 
reason  for  an  action.  No  doubt  the  old  school- 
masters were  fully  alive  to  the  fact  that  their 
pupils  could  give  ingenious  but  false  reasons  for  their 
actions,  but  what  the  older  generation  of  school- 
masters did  not  realise  is  that  the  pupils  may  them- 
selves believe  in  the  false  reasons  they  assign. 
School  youngsters  even  in  difficult  positions  requiring 
explanation  are  not  always  the  brazen  hypocrites 
they  sometimes  appear  to  be  in  the  eyes  of  un- 
discriminating  teacher-judges. 

The  ordinary  teacher's  relation  to  the  new  methods 
thus  becomes  a  little  clearer.  He  ought  to  study 
the  psychology  of  the  unconscious,  and  even  make 
himself  acquainted  to  some  extent  with  the  methods 
followed  by  the  psycho-analysts,  so  that  he  may 
learn  how  to  profit  by  his  knowledge  of  the  psychology 
he  has  learnt.  Then  he  is  ready  to  derive  every 
legitimate  advantage  from  whatever  happens  in  the 
schoolroom  and  the  playing-field.  Probably  a 
thorough  study  of  his  own  experiences  in  relation 
to  his  unconscious  is  one  of  the  best  ways  of  enabling 


270     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

the  teacher  to  put  himself  in  the  place  of  his  pupils, 
and  to  behave  intelligently  towards  them  in  conse- 
quence. By  diligent  study  of  his  own  experience 
the  teacher  gets  the  necessary  knowledge  without 
having  to  submit  his  pupils  to  analysis  which,  how- 
ever honest  the  teacher  may  be  and  however  careful, 
has  a  tendency  to  become  morbid,  and  to  produce 
an  unwholesome  relation  between  teacher  and  pupil. 
Having  got  thus  far,  many  teachers  find  themselves 
faced  with  the  awkward  problem :  Should  the 
teacher  have  himself  psycho- analysed  in  order  that 
he  may  the  better  understand  the  whole  process  in 
the  .interest  of  his  pupils  J  To  the  plain,  unsophis- 
ticated teacher  this  question  comes  with  a  shock 
of  pained  surprise.  He  is  apt  to  ask  :  Why  in  the 
world  should  I  be  psycho- analysed  ?  I  am  perfectly 
normal,  and  analysis  is  meant  for  the  abnormal. 
The  thorough-going  psycho-analyst  is  ready  with 
his  answer : 

"  I  take  this  opportunity  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  normal  human  being.  Everyone  is 
abnormal  in  one  way  or  another.  According  to  Freud, 
every  child  is  a  '  polymorphic  pervert.'  This  tendency  is 
never  altogether  obliterated."  * 

Our  reply  is,  so  much  the  worse  for  Freud  if  he 
carries  his  theory  to  this  extreme  length.  Ordinary 
experience  shows  that  there  are  great  numbers 
of  human  beings  who  sufficiently  conform  to  the 
general  type  to  be  justly  called  normal.  But  even 
if  the  teacher's  normality  is  conceded,  he  is  not  yet 

1  W.  Stekel,  Disguises  of  Love,  p.  45. 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     271 

out  of  the  wood,  for  the  psycho-analyst  who  has  set 
himself  up  as  the  exponent  of  its  pedagogic  aspects 
soberly  sides  with  those  who  would  ask  for  this 
sacrifice  on  the  teacher's  part. 

"  According  to  the  opinion  of  all  competent  men,  it  is 
a  great  mistake  to  imagine  that  one  can  analyse  thoroughly 
before  one  has  been  analysed  oneself."  * 

There  is  here  the  obvious  loophole  that  the  plain 
teacher  does  not  propose  to  analyse  his  pupils  in 
the  technical  way,  and  therefore  has  no  need  of 
that  thoroughness  to  which  one's  own  analysis  is 
a  condition  precedent.  The  teacher  can  practise 
the  rough-and-ready  analysis  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking,  without  the  least  need  of  having  turned 
himself  into  a  "case  "  when  there  was  nothing  the 
matter  with  him.  There  is  a  sinister  suggestion  in 
Dr.  Pfister's  introduction  of  the  technical  term 
pedanalysis.  It  would  seem  to  imply  that  we  have 
here  a  new  and  normal  way  of  dealing  with  our 
ordinary  pupils.  Of  course  if  all  our  pupils  are 
Freudian  "  polymorphic  perverts,"  the  sooner  we 
establish  a  psycho- analytic  clinic  in  every  school 
the  better,  but  we  decline  to  accept  this  pessimistic 
view.  Probably  the  only  foundation  for  it  is  the 
undoubted  fact  that  we  all  do  differ  from  each  other, 
we  all  have  our  peculiarities.  But  this  goes  no 
further  than  to  admit  that  we  all  have  individuality, 
and  our  newer  educators  are  exceedingly  careful 
to  respect  this  individuality.     So  far  from  being  a 

1  Oskar  Pfister,  Psycho-analysis  in  the  Service  of  Educa- 
tion, p.  155. 


272     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

handicap,  it  is  regarded  as  an  asset,  and  there  is  much 
more  need  of  a  crusade  to  protect  the  commonplace 
pupil  than  to  protect  the  pupil  of  marked  individual- 
ity. Pedanalysis  of  a  plain,  straightforward  sort 
may  well  be  recommended.  Child  Study  in  modera- 
tion is  an  excellent  thing,  and  has  always  been  carried 
on  to  some  extent.  But  the  natural-history  stage 
of  pedanalysis  as  exemplified  in  child  study  is  some- 
thing quite  different  from  the  application  to  children 
of  a  form  of  analysis  that  properly  belongs  to  the 
resources  of  pathology,  and  should  have  no  place 
among  ordinary  wholesome  children. 

Teachers  and  parents  have  a  natural  objection  to 
the  introduction  of  brass  instruments  into  school 
for  the  purpose  of  psychological  investigation.  Some 
education  authorities  take  up  the  attitude  that  they 
do  not  object  to  educational  experiments  in  their 
schools,  but  lay  down  the  condition  that  instruments 
must  not  be  used.  The  distinction  is  perhaps 
natural :  it  certainly  is  not  rational.  It  implies 
that  the  material  part  of  the  child  must  be  carefully 
protected  from  external  interference,  while  the 
spiritual  part  is  left  open  to  assault  from  all  sides. 
Wise  teachers  are  aware  of  certain  dangers  that  may 
accompany  the  study  of  mental  science  in  their  own 
case,  and  they  agree  with  the  warnings  that  psycho- 
logists themselves  give  against  the  introduction  of 
the  psychological  attitude  into  the  school-room. 
When  Miinsterberg  distinguished  between  the  atti- 
tude the  teacher  should  adopt  towards  his  pupils 
and  that  the  psychologist  must  take  up  towards 
the  persons  he  studies,  he  did  a  service  to  all  teachers, 
particularly  to  those  whose  consciences  drive  them 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     273 

to  make  a  careful  study  of  child  nature.  If  this 
be  true  about  ordinary  psychology,  how  much  more 
is  it  necessary  to  be  on  our  guard  against  the  in- 
sidious attractions  of  psycho-analysis.  Let  us 
cordially  admit  that  it  has  its  place,  and  a  very 
important  one.  Teachers  are  only  too  glad  to  be 
able  to  hand  over  to  the  professional  analysts  any 
pathological  case  that  may  occur  in  their  practice. 

The  detection  of  pathological  cases  is  not  easy,  and 
this  difficulty  is  one  of  the  chief  reasons  why  teachers 
should  know  something  of  the  principles  of  the  new 
method.  They  ought  to  know  the  sort  of  sym- 
ptoms to  look  for  in  doubtful  cases.  The  intelligence 
tests  give  an  indication  of  the  possibility  of  actual 
defect,  and  up  to  that  indication  the  teacher  may 
be  expected  to  work.  But  when  a  prima  facie 
case  has  been  made  out  for  the  probability  of  defect 
in  any  instance,  the  matter  should  then  be  handed 
over  to  the  specialist.  The  teacher  has  done  his 
part.  So  with  the  moral  side  in  so  far  as  the  psycho- 
analytic treatment  is  concerned.  The  teacher 
finds  himself  richly  repaid  for  his  studies  in  the 
psychology  of  the  unconscious  when  he  gets  over 
the  natural  tendency  to  impute  wrong  motives  and 
impulses  to  his  erring  youngsters.  Many  offences 
that  used  to  be  put  down  to  original  sin,  plus  the 
various  aggravations  invented  by  the  individual, 
are  now  traced  to  their  causes,  and  the  pupils  treated 
accordingly.  But  when  a  particularly  obdurate 
case  occurs,  which  the  teacher  finds  himself  incap- 
able of  handling,  he  has  now  the  chance  of  reporting 
the  case  to  his  educational  authority,  or  to  the 
parents  when  these  latter  are  in  a  position  to  deal 
18 


274     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

with  such  a  serious  case.  No  doubt  in  the  near 
future  all  education  authorities  will  have  a  psycho- 
logical expert  in  their  service  to  deal  with  these 
matters  along  with  others. 

While  the  teacher  will  welcome  the  opportunity 
of  handing  over  the  serious  responsibility  of  dealing 
with  mental  cases  that  are  clearly  pathological,  he 
will  maintain  his  self-respect  by  knowing  how  to 
find  out  which  cases  need  the  attention  of  the  ex- 
perts. At  the  present  moment  there  is  a  certain 
resentment  among  some  teachers  on  the  point  of 
determining  which  children  are  mentally  defective. 
The  decision  here  has  been  generally  left  entirely 
in  the  hands  of  the  medical  officers.  This  is  not 
unnatural,  since  these  men  are  generally  well  trained 
along  scientific  lines.  But  they  are  often  ludicrously 
ignorant  of  school  conditions.  In  determining 
whether  a  child  is  defective  or  merely  backward 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  on  first  principles 
that  the  doctor  is  more  likely  to  be  right  than  the 
teacher.  The  chances  are,  in  fact,  in  favour  of 
the  teacher  being  the  better  qualified  to  judge. 
The  medical  man  certainly  knows  the  bodily  side 
extremely  well,  but  he  is  apt  to  judge  from  that 
side  alone,  and  if  he  ventures  on  some  mental  tests 
he  is  quite  as  much  out  of  his  beat  as  is  the  teacher 
who  ventures  a  physical  diagnosis.  No  doubt  if 
teacher  and  doctor  have  both  studied  intelligence 
tests  the  doctor  is  on  the  whole  more  likely  to  get 
at  the  root  of  the  matter,  because  of  his  previous 
scientific  training  on  the  biological  side. 

Here,  as  in  the  matter  of  psycho-analysis,  the 
teacher's  self-respect  demands  that  he  should  know 


Psycho-analysis  in  Education     275 

enough  about  the  matter  to  behave  intelligently, 
to  report  with  knowledge.  In  the  case  of  intelli- 
gence tests  he  ought  to  be  able  to  go  all  the  way 
and  to  consult  with  the  doctor  on  equal  terms. 
With  regard  to  analysis  the  matter  is  different, 
and  the  teacher  should  be  glad  to  hand  over  the 
matter  entirely  into  the  hands  of  the  specialist. 
After  all,  he  is  himself  a  specialist  in  intelligence, 
but  only  an  outsider  in  the  matter  of  psycho- 
analysis. 

In  fact,  as  my  friend  Dr.  R.  R.  Rusk,  of  St. 
Andrews,  is  very  anxious  to  impress  on  the  audiences 
to  whom  he  lectures,  teachers  do  extremely  well  if 
they  can  apply  their  knowledge  of  the  psychology 
of  the  unconscious  to  their  work  in  such  a  way  as 
to  avoid  the  formation  of  complexes.  So  far  from 
resolving  complexes  already  formed,  the  ordinary 
teacher  is  very  apt  to  form  fresh  complexes  during 
the  pupil's  school  course.  The  unnecessary 
restraints  of  school  life,  the  anxieties  resulting  from 
over-stimulated  emulation,  the  strain  of  examina- 
tions, the  humiliations  that  accompany  the  teacher's 
thoughtless  sarcasms — all  these  have  a  tendency  to 
produce  unwholesome  repressions  with  consequent 
complex-formation.  In  the  poorer  districts  of  towns 
the  children  in  elementary  schools  have  often 
additional  sources  of  danger  from  their  bad  home 
conditions.  It  is  obviously  greatly  to  the  interest 
of  the  pupils  that  the  teachers  should  have  a  clear 
idea  of  the  possibilities  of  the  harm  that  may  be 
done  by  sheer  ignorance  and  misinterpretation.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  teachers  must  be  for  ever  on 
their  guard   against   reading   too   much  into   the 


276     Psycho-analysis  in  Education 

ordinary  reactions  of  their  pupils.  A  study  of  the 
unconscious  is  very  apt  to  leave  traces  in  the  way  of 
oversensibility  to  reactions  that  may  possibly  have 
a  meaning  for  psycho-analysis  and  just  as  possibly 
not.  The  teacher  must  be  as  nearly  normal  as 
Stekel  and  Freud  will  allow  him,  and  must  above 
everything  carry  on  his  work  in  school  by  dealing 
with  his  pupils  on  a  wholesome  hi:  man  footing. 


CHAPTER  XII 
FREE  DISCIPLINE 

IN  all  that  has  been  said  about  the  various  new 
methods  of  dealing  with  school  matters,  we 
have  taken  it  for  granted  that  there  exists  an 
authority  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  that  enables 
him  to  apply  whatever  plans  strike  him  as  most 
likely  to  produce  the  effects  he  desires.  The  source 
of  this  authority  is  often  misunderstood.  On  very 
many  occasions  I  have  put  this  question  in  examina- 
tion papers  for  young  teachers  :  "  State,  in  as  plain 
and  untechnical  terms  as  you  can,  why  it  is  that 
pupils  obey  their  teachers."  Long  experience  has 
taught  me  that  there  are  three  popular  answers 
that  among  them  account  for  over  90  per  cent,  of 
the  papers.  The  first,  and  by  far  the  most  popular, 
is  that  pupils  obey  because  of  physical  force : 
because  if  they  do  not,  a  worse  thing  may  befall 
them.  The  next  most  popular  answer  is  given 
more  frequently  by  young  women  than  by  young 
men  :  pupils  obey  their  teachers  because  they  are 
fond  of  them.  The  third  is  nearly  as  big  as  the  second 
group,  and  is  made  up  of  those  who  think  pupils 
obey  out  of  respect  for  the  superior  knowledge  of  the 
teachers.  Very  little  reflection  is  needed  to  discover 
that  the  first  and  most  popular  reason  is  false,  as  it 
is  expressed  by  the  students.     No  master  by  sheer 

277 


278  Free  Discipline 

physical  force  could  overcome  a  class  of  forty  boys. 
They  could  get  the  better  of  him  by  merely  throwing 
themselves  upon  him :  sheer  weight  avoirdupois 
would  do  the  rest.  Corporal  punishment  is  often 
confounded  with  control  by  mere  physical  force. 
But  corporal  punishment  can  be  inflicted  only  with 
the  consent  of  the  culprit.  Unless  he  consents,  it 
is  not  a  case  of  punishment :  it  is  a  fight.  While 
the  master  could  probably  in  physical  combat 
account  for  any  one  boy  in  his  class,  he  could  not  do 
the  same  for  his  class  collectively.  Brute  force 
may  in  the  last  resort  stand  behind  the  teacher  as 
the  representative  of  society,  but  this  brute  force 
is  not  the  direct  cause  of  the  obedience  he 
commands  from  his  pupils. 

Personal  liking  no  doubt  has  an  important  effect, 
but  the  smallest  experience  of  school  work  will 
supply  abundant  examples  of  pupils  who  are  willing 
to  obey  teachers  that  they  do  not  like,  and  ready  to 
disobey  teachers  whom  they  do  like.  So  with  the 
respect  for  the  teacher's  learning.  The  pupils  may 
be  as  full  of  awe  for  their  master's  knowledge  as 
were  the  rustics  of  Sweet  Auburn,  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  they  obey  him  because  of  that.  There 
are  other  kinds  of  knowledge  for  which  they  have  a 
much  higher  respect  than  for  that  at  the  teacher's 
disposal.  How  to  manipulate  a  motor,  drive  a 
flying  machine,  or  even  work  successfully  a  Punch 
and  Judy  Show,  are  skills  that  win  various  ages  of 
juveniles  much  more  effectively  than  the  sort  of 
knowledge  the  schoolmaster  deals  in. 

The  real  source  of  the  teacher's  authority  lies 
elsewhere,  and  may  be  found  in  two  main  directions. 


Free  Discipline  279 

First  there  is  the  nature  of  society.  Modern  social 
life  is  built  up  on  a  system  that  includes  obeying 
teachers  as  a  part  of  the  nature  of  things.  Every- 
thing is  conducted  on  that  principle.  All  the 
paraphernalia  of  educational  administration  tends 
to  buttress  the  authority  of  the  teacher.  The  fact 
that  there  is  a  special  Government  department 
presided  over  by  a  Cabinet  Minister,  the  existence  of 
a  huge  staff  of  highly  important  officials  at  the 
Education  Office  and  distributed  peripatetically 
throughout  the  country,  of  local  authorities  specially 
set  apart  for  educational  administration,  of  numerous 
more  or  less  dignified  educational  buildings,  all 
produce  the  impression  that  the  army  of  teachers 
is  a  serious  matter  and  the  members  of  that  army 
are  persons  to  be  obeyed.  The  little  boy  who  has 
been  threatened  by  nurse  or  parent  for  a  long  time 
with  the  sudden  end  of  disobedience  that  is  .to 
occur  when  he  is  sent  to  school,  appears  at  the  portals, 
when  the  fatal  day  arrives,  with  full  purpose  of  and 
endeavour  after  independence.  He'll  show  them, 
he  says  in  his  ignorant  pride.  Within  the  class- 
room he  finds  himself,  to  his  own  surprise,  doing 
what  he  is  told.  He  explains  afterwards  that 
somehow  or  other  everybody  seemed  to  expect  him 
to  obey,  and  as  all  the  rest  were  obeying  he  fell  in 
with  the  movement,  and  thus  supplied  a  typical 
case  of  the  power  of  the  social  nature  of  things. 

There  is,  however,  still  another  source  of  power. 
The  authority  of  all  teachers  is  not  the  same.  The 
position  of  prestige  into  which  society  thrusts  a 
teacher  gives  him  every  chance  of  securing  the 
obedience  of  his  pupils.     But  all  do  not  secure  it 


280  Free  Discipline 

to  the  same  degree.  A  good  deal  depends  in  the 
last  resort  on  the  teacher's  personality.  We  have 
all  a  certain  control  that  is  innate.  It  may  be  used 
wisely  or  ill,  but  it  does  not  seem  capable  of  being 
increased  in  itself  by  anything  we  or  others  can  do. 
There  are  few  people  who  are  entirely  without  this 
power,  but  those  who  lack  it  are  quite  incapable  of 
securing  obedience,  even  when  society  does  its  best 
in  the  way  of  supplying  a  position  of  advantage. 
Training  colleges  can  help  those  who  have  a  poor 
power  of  control  to  make  the  best  use  of  the  power 
they  possess,  but  they  cannot  supply  this  power  to 
one  who  is  born  into  the  world  without  it.  They 
cannot  supply  a  backbone  to  an  invertebrate. 

This  power  of  control  is  often  spoken  of  as  the 
power  of  maintaining  discipline,  and  under  this 
name  has  acquired  an  altogether  disproportionate 
importance  in  the  eyes  especially  of  the  teachers  of 
elementary  schools.  It  is  important,  no  doubt,  so 
important  that  it  is  a  sine  qua  non  of  success  in 
teaching.  We  cannot  even  begin  teaching  unless 
we  possess  it  in  some  degree.  But  the  mistake  lies  1 
in  giving  it  a  positive  value  when  it  is  entitled  to  ~ 
only  a  negative  one.  Mr.  A.  C.  Benson  shows  less 
than  his  usual  acumen  when  he  writes :  "  The 
power  of  maintaining  discipline  is  the  unum  neces- 
sarium  for  a  teacher.  If  he  has  not  got  it  and 
cannot  acquire  it,  he  had  better  sweep  a  crossing/'  8 
It  is  necessary,  without  doubt,  but  it  is  far  from 
being  the  only  thing  that  is  necessary.  It  may  be 
possessed  in  the  highest  degree  by  those  who  are 
utterly  incapable  of  teaching.  On  one  occasion  the 
1  The  Schoolmaster,  p.  23. 


Free  Discipline  281 

headmaster  of  an  elementary  school  had  to  be 
present  at  court  in  a  case  of  truancy.  His  second 
master  and  a  class-teacher  happened  to  be  ill  that 
morning,  so  it  came  about  that  120  boys  were  left 
in  a  room  with  no  teacher.  The  school  porter,  an 
old  sergeant,  became  aware  that  something  was 
amiss,  dashed  upstairs,  sprang  upon  the  little  plat- 
form, and  glared.  There  was  dead  silence  :  but 
nothing  else  happened.  The  glaring  continued  for 
eighty  minutes,  till  the  headmaster  returned,  but 
that  was  all  that  went  on.  Mr.  S.  P.  B.  Mais  writes 
in  A  Public  School  in  War  Time  : 

"  Countless  men  have  I  known  who  are  rapidly  making 
names  for  themselves  as  successful  schoolmasters,  who 
under  any  sane  system  of  education  would  have  been 
sacked  after  their  first  day  ;  men  who  have  this  wonderful 
gift  of  being  able  to  keep  boys  in  order,  but  beyond  it 
nothing,  nothing  at  all — they  would  fail  even  as  policemen. 
They  have  no  powers  of  direction  ;  they  can  only  hold  their 
hands  up  and  keep  the  traffic  at  bay.  Successful  school- 
masters, indeed  !  " 

A  man  who  can  maintain  control  is  in  a  position 
to  begin  teaching.  He  has  cleared  the  decks.  But 
teaching  itself  is  a  positive  process,  and  the  power 
of  control  in  itself  has  nothing  to  do  with  it,  beyond 
making  it  possible.  In  ordinary  school  phraseology 
"  a  good  disciplinarian  means  a  person  who  can 
easily  control  a  class,  and  the  discipline  of  a  school 
is  usually  understood  to  mean  the  control  the  staff 
exercise  over  the  behaviour  of  the  pupils."  In  the 
old  days  of  payment  by  results,  there  was  a  special 
grant  of  one  shilling  per  head  for  good  discipline 
and  organisation,  or  eighteen  pence  for  excellent. 


282  Free  Discipline 

In  practice  the  difference  between  the  two  was 
determined  entirely  by  the  discipline :  the 
organisation  was  a  mere  make- weight. 
"""it  is  now  generally  agreed  that  in  these  bad  old 
days  this  power  of  control  was  greatly  overvalued, 
since  it  was  very  often  used  to  produce  a  totally 
unwholesome  kind  of  discipline,  of  the  worst  Prussian 
brand,  and  a  group  of  advanced  educational  people 
have  now  come  forward  with  a  doctrine  of  what 
Lihey  call  "  free  discipline."  To  the  question  I  set 
my  young  teachers  they  would  reply  that  the  matter 
was  not  of  the  first  importance.  The  question  that 
really  matters,  they  would  say,  is  "  Why  should 
pupils  obey  their  teachers  at  all  ?  "  Should  they 
not  be  allowed  to  do  things  in  their  own  way,  without 
the  continual  interference  of  the  teacher  ?  In  the 
Froebelian  phrase,  the  teacher's  function  should  be 
that  of  benevolent  superintendence  :  he  must  not 
interfere,  but  ought  to  let  the  young  people  develop 
according  to  the  laws  of  their  own  nature.  His 
position  is  to  be  "a  passivity,  a  following."  In 
what  has  gone  before  we  have  become  gradually 
educated  up  to  something  approaching  this  bold 
claim,  but  the  ordinary  practical  teacher,  who  is  a 
good  disciplinarian,  can  hardly  speak  peaceably 
about  this  demand  for  freedom  for  the  child  within 
the  school.  The  case  for  Free  Discipline  is  perhaps 
best  put  by  Mr.  Norman  MacMunn  in  his  The  Child's 
Path  to  Freedom.  He  begins  his  attack  by  quoting 
from  a  Presidential  address  delivered  to  the  Teachers' 
Guild  by  Dr.  Temple,  ex- Headmaster  of  Rep  ton  : 

"  '  The  only  true  liberty  is  through  discipline,'  he  begins, 


Free  Discipline  283 

with  a  queer  inversion  of  the  conclusions  of  the  most  recent 
psychologists.  To  this  strange  dictum — and  the  context 
shows  what  Dr.  Temple  means  by  discipline — we  might 
well  oppose  Dr.  Dewey's  view  that : 

"  '  The  school  has  been  so  set  apart,  so  isolated  from  the 
ordinary  conditions  and  motives  of  life,  that  the  place 
where  children  are  sent  for  discipline  is  the  one  place  in 
the  world  where  it  is  most  difficult  to  get  experience — the 
mother  of  all  discipline  worth  the  name.' 

"  Dr.  Temple  goes  on  : 

"  '  A  new-born  child  has  practically  no  will.  The  ele- 
mentary stages  of  education  consist  in  creating  will,  the 
faculty  of  attention,  which  is  the  essence  of  will.' 

"  Now  to  say  that  a  new-born  child  '  has  practically 
no  will '  is  just  as  true  as,  and  no  more  true  than,  to  say 
that  it  has  no  intellectual  or  artistic  powers,  or  that  it  has 
a  negligible  capacity  to  digest  varied  nourishment."  l 

Understanding  discipline  in  the  sense  popularly 
recognised  in  teaching,  Mr.  MacMunn  distinguishes 
three  stages  of  its  application.  The  first  is  that  of 
stern  repression,  practically  based  on  force,  whether 
supported  by  consent  or  not :  the  long,  dull, 
dreary,  brutal  period  during  which  the  cane  was  the 
first  and  last  resort  of  the  schoolmasters  whom 
Sou  they  stigmatises  as  the  "  phlebotomists."  Next 
came  the  second  or  transition  period,  during  which 
educators  became  civilised,  but  still  could  not 
bring  themselves  to  the  pitch  of  allowing  perfect 
freedom  to  their  pupils.  Their  influence,  however, 
was  exercised  in  the  milder  form  of  a  dominant 
personality.  This  group  is  represented  by  men 
like  Arnold  and  Thring,  against  whose  characters  it 
is  hard  to  make  a  case.  Mr.  MacMunn,  however, 
is  inexorable;  he  would  sweep  even  such  noble 
1  Op.  cti.,[p.  52. 


284  Free  Discipline 

exemplars  from  the  path  of  freedom  for  the  children. 
These  masters  were  good  enough  in  their  way,  and 
they  certainly  did  admirable  work  in  bridging 
the  gulf  between  the  old  harsh,  repressive  system 
and  the  new  freedom  that  is  just  beginning.  But 
what  is  wanted  by  the  newest  school  of  discipline 
is  freedom  from  all  repression,  even  the  repression 
that  comes  from  an  overmastering  personality.  The 
freedom  of  the  pupil  is  to  be  positive,  not 
merely  negative.  "  Negative  discipline  is  powerless,'' 
quotes  Mr.  MacMunn  from  Goethe,  and  goes  on  to 
establish  the  claims  of  that  form  of  discipline  which 
children  set  up  among  themselves  when  they  receive 
fall  opportunity  and  encouragement.  Most  pro- 
gressive teachers  will  be  with  him  in  his  preference 
for  positive  or  constructive  discipline  as  compared 
with  the  negative  and  repressive  form.  He  is 
opposed  to  "  don't "  as  the  basis,  and  makes  a  very 
effective  quotation  from  Sir  Robert  Baden- Powell : 

"  Authorities  have  come  along  to  improve  the  Scout  Law 
and,  not  recognising  the  active  side  of  it,  have  changed  it 
to  the  reverse — a  series  of  '  don'ts.'  '  Don't '  of  course 
is  the  distinguishing  feature  and  motto  of  the  old-fashioned 
system  of  repression,  and  is  a  red-rag  to  a  boy.  The  main 
step  to  success  is  to  develop,  not  to  repress,  the  child's 
character,  and  at  the  same  time,  above  all,  not  to  nurse 
him.  He  wants  to  be  doing  things  :  therefore,  encourage 
him  to  do  them  in  his  own  way.  Let  him  make  his  own 
mistakes  ;  it  is  by  these  that  he  learns  experience." * 

To  this  I  have  heard  a  very  capable  old  disci- 
plinarian make  the  contemptuous  reply  that  he  for 

1  The  Child's  Path  to  Freedom,  p.r73- 


Free  Discipline  285 

one  had  no  objection  to  the  little  word  "  don't/' 
adding  complacently  :  "  The  style  of  the  ten  com- 
mandments is  good  enough  for  me."  But  like  the 
good  Christian  he  is,  he  got  into  difficulties  when  I 
pointed  out  that  the  line  of  evolution  was  obviously 
from  the  "  Thou  shalt  not "  of  the  Old  Testament 
to  the  "Thou  shalt"  of  the  New.  When  Christ 
was  asked  by  a  hostile  lawyer  "  Which  is  the  great 
commandment  in  the  law  ?  "  the  reply  included 
none  of  the  prohibitions,  but  summed  up  the  spirit 
of  the  law  in  the  positive  injunction  : 

"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart, 
and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind.  This  is  the 
first  and  great  commandment.  And  the  second  is  like 
unto  it,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself.  On  these 
two  commandments  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets." 

My  veteran  friend  argued  a  little  shakenly  that  we 
were  not  yet  sufficiently  advanced  for  this  doctrine^ 
at  any  rate  our  schoolboys  were  not.  It  is  some- 
thing to  have  it  recognised  that  we  are  at  all  events 
moving  in  the  line  that  evolution  appears  to  be 
taking,  even  if  we  have  hard  work  yet  before  us  to 
convince  people  that  we  are  ready  for  the  immediate^ 
application  of  the  new  freedom. 

When  it  comes  to  the  dominating  influence  of  the 
personality  of  the  teacher  it  is  hard  to  agree  with 
Mr.  MacMunn,  though  it  is  easy  to  understand  the 
position  that  he  so  clearly  outlines.  He  wants  the 
children  to  be  perfectly  free  to  act  in  their  own  way 
and  to  develop  along  their  own  lines  without  any 
external  interference,  even  if  that  outside  influence 
be  in  itself  excellent.     He  looks  back  with  horror 


286  Free  Discipline 

at  the  long  record  of  brutal  and  unintelligent  repres- 
sion in  the  past,  and  looks  forward  to  the  glorious 
freedom  that  is  just  dawning  or  about  to  dawn, 
and  between  the  two  he  makes  out  a  dim  period  of 
transition  occupied  by  a  group  of  men,  whom  he 
calls  impressionists,  who  still  seek  to  dominate, 
though  they  no  longer  fall  back  upon  savage  repres- 
sion, but  are  content  to  get  their  way  by  imposing 
their  personality  on  their  pupils.  He  is  unhappy 
about  Arnold  and  Thring.  He  likes  them ■  and 
admires  them,  but  he  does  not  like  their  getting  into 
the  way  between  their  pupils  and  complete  freedom. 
It  is  universally  admitted  that  Arnold  left  his  mark 
on  his  pupils,  and  it  is  not  a  sufficient  compensation, 
in  Mr.  MacMunn's  opinion,  that  the  mark  was  a 
good  one.  He  wants  Arnold's  boys  to  be  them- 
selves, not  a  replica  of  their  great  master.  But  he 
is  not  happy  in  his  objections.  Thring  worries  him 
nearly  as  much.  It  is  only  after  he  has  done  honour 
to  both,  that  he  feels  at  liberty  to  get  in  his  blow. 

"  All  I  would  point  out  is,  that  there  are  thousands  of 
men  and  women  having  the  gifts  neither  of  Arnolds  nor 
of  Thrings  who  aim  at  the  more  or  less  complete  appro- 
priation of  the  souls  of  those  whom  they  teach — on  the 
ground  that  Arnold  and  Thring  have  set  them  the  example."2 

But  he  has  to  admit  that  this  indirect  control  is 
of  a  totally  different  kind  from  that  exercised  by 
the  pedagogues  that  rouse  his  warmest  indignation. 
There  is  a  saying  of  Washington's  that  is  popular 

1  Cf.  J.  E.  Adamson,  The  Individual  and  the  Environment, 
P-  342. 

2  The  Child's  Path  to  Freedom,  p.  59. 


Free  Discipline  287 

in  America  and  is  apposite  here.  Henry  Lee  had 
written  to  Washington  recommending  that  the 
influence  of  Congress  should  be  brought  to  bear 
with  a  view  to  end  a  small  rebellion,  and  Washington 
replied  "  Influence  is  not  government."  Dr.  E. 
Ellsworth  Brown  uses  the  remark  as  the  text  on 
which  to  preach  an  educational  sermon '  recom- 
mending the  very  sort  of  thing  that  Mr.  MacMunn 
resents.  The  implication  is  that  education  should 
attain  its  ends  by  more  or  less  indirect  ^means, 
whereas  government  would  suggest  just  the  sort  of 
direct  imposition  of  authority  that  marked  the  age 
before  the  impressionists.  In  point  of  fact  we  ought 
to  welcome  impressionism  and  do  all  we  can  to  get 
men  into  the  profession  who  are  worthy  of  the  title. 
Let  it  be  granted  thatPhlebotomism  is  now  entirely 
out  of  court,  and  that  Impressionism  is  still  on  its 
trial.  There  remains  the  third  and  much- disputed 
position  that  demands  for  the  pupils  the  most  com- 
plete freedom  conceivable,  and  that  accordingly 
adopts  the  name  of  Emancipationism.  If  this  third 
stage  develops  in  the  way  its  advocates  would 
desire,  it  would  almost  appear  as  if  indeed  "  this 
our  craft  is  in  danger  to  be  set  at  nought,"  for  there 
does  not  seem  to  be  any  very  important  place  left 
for  us.  Mr.  MacMunn  as  an  enthusiastic  emancipa- 
tionist has  reached  the  conclusion  that  the  time  has 
come  for  Impressionism  to  be  swallowed  up  in  Free 
Discipline.  He  is  of  those  who  would  suggest  as 
the  most  appropriate  motto  for  all  teachers  one  or 
other  of  the  two  French  verbs  s'effacer  and  se 
blottir.  But  the  question  naturally  rises  :  can  the 
1  Education  by  Influence,  p.  3. 


288  Free  Discipline 

teacher  at  will  efface  himself  or  blot  himself  out  ? 
Whether  he  will  or  no  he  is  thrust  into  a  position 
of  prominence,  and  must  act  accordingly.  Even 
on  the  physical  side  it  is  by  no  means  easy  se  blottir. 
The  Montessorians  attack  the  Kindergartners  on 
the  ground  that  the  latter  are  always  prominent  in 
the  class-room,  while  the  Montessorian  directresses 
keep  modestly  in  the  background.  Defending  her 
system,  a  well-known  London  Kindergartner  ad- 
mitted that  the  mistress  in  a  Kindergarten  neces- 
sarily occupied  a  position  of  prominence,  because 
of  her  size.  She  was  too  polite  to  make  any  reference 
to  the  dimensions  of  directresses.  But  the  implica- 
tion was  that  literally,  and  from  the  ordinary 
teacher's  point  of  view  also  figuratively,  the  teacher 
cannot  efface  himself.  His  personality  will  out,  and 
will  influence  the  pupils.  He  may  not  seek  to  get 
his  pupils  to  imitate  him  :  may  indeed  live  in 
dread  of  their  imitation.  But  for  weal  or  for  woe, 
there  he  is,  set  upon  a  pedestal.  Many  a  teacher 
would  willingly  preach  in  all  seriousness  to  his  pupils 
from  the  whimsical  text  "  Don't  do  as  I  do,  do  as  I 
tell  you."  But  the  sermon  is  in  vain  :  the  teacher 
is  there  as  a  model  for  imitation.  There  is  one 
comfort  for  the  emancipationists  that  they  do  not 
seem  sufficiently  to  appreciate.  Imitation  is  affected 
by  suggestion  and  may  therefore  work  both  positively 
and  negatively.  The  contrariant  disposition,  of 
which  Dr.  Keatinge  makes  so  much,  may  operate 
in  such  a  way  as  to  save  the  pupils  from  the  fatal 
subservience  of  which  the  emancipationists  are  so 
much  afraid. 

Speaking  from  the  experience  of  his  own  upbring- 


Free  Discipline  289 

ing,  John  Stuart  Mill  made  a  remark  that  must  be 
pleasing  in  the  ears  of  the  emancipationists  who 
happen  to  come  across  it :  "  Strong-willed  parents 
have  weak-willed  children.' '  Elsewhere,  I  have 
already  quoted  a  passage  that  cannot  be  too  often 
brought  to  the  notice  of  teachers  :  it  is  from  a 
public  eulogy  on  a  distinguished  teacher  : 

"  His  students  had  such  implicit  confidence  in  his  know- 
ledge, and  such  reverence  for  his  opinion,  that  after  leaving 
him  they  no  longer  cared  to  think  for  themselves.  They 
were  satisfied  by  the  conclusions  reached  by  a  mind  so  much 
superior  to  their  own,  possessing  a  grasp  and  insight 
which  they  realised  was  so  far  in  advance  of  anything  they 
could  ever  hope  to  attain."  1 

What,  then,  are  strong-willed  parents  to  do,  and 
how  is  a  brilliant  teacher  to  avoid  being  lampooned 
in  this  way  after  his  death  ?  Obviously  strong- 
willed  parents  ought  to  have  wills  strong  enough  to 
prevent  them  from  refusing  to  their  children  the 
chance  of  exercising  their  wills  in  their  turn.  As  to 
the  brilliant  scholar  and  thinker,  it  is  surely  possible 
for  him  to  talk  a  little  less  and  allow  his  pupils  to 
talk  a  little  more,  and  thus  acquire  the  necessary 
self-confidence.  But  surely  he  need  not  be  called 
upon  to  surrender  his  personality.  In  point  of  fact 
it  cannot  be  done,  and  the  emancipationists  ought 
to  know  it.  Does  the  chief  adviser  of  the  children 
of  Tiptree  Hall  seriously  ask  us  to  believe  that  his 
personality  does  not  affect  his  pupils  ?  Can  anyone 
picture  Mr.  Caldwell  Cook  as  a  colourless  imper- 

1  S.  B.  Sinclair,  The  Possibility  of  a  Science  of  Education, 
p.  18. 

*9 


290  Free  Discipline 

sonality  in  a  room  full  of  vigorous  Littlemen  ?  No 
doubt  Mr.  MacMunn,  Mr.  Caldwell  Cook,  and  Mr. 
A.  S.  Neill  have  learnt  the  art  of  holding  their 
tongues  at  the  proper  place,  and  leaving  their 
youngsters  the  necessary  opportunities  to  make 
their  own  mistakes,  but  the  three  are  as  virulent 
impressionists,  every  one  of  them,  as  Arnold  and 
Thring  themselves. 

At  this  stage  the  honest  and  modest  teacher  is 
apt  to  feel  awkward.  He  cannot  help  judging  that 
he  is  right  in  not  attempting  to  suppress  his  per- 
sonality, yet  at  the  same  time  he  cannot  get  away 
from  the  humiliating  impression  that  he  is  thrusting 
himself  forward  into  the  limelight.  He  agrees  with 
Professor  Palmer  that  the  ideal  teacher  must  have 
a  readiness  to  be  forgotten,  must  have  an  aptitude 
for  vicariousness,  must  be  willing  to  give  service 
without  hope  of  praise  or  recognition  : 

"  A  teacher  does  not  live  for  himself,  but  for  his  pupil 
and  for  the  truth  which  he  imparts.  His  aim  is  to  be  a 
colourless  medium  through  which  that  truth  may  shine 
on  opening  minds.  How  can  he  be  this  if  he  is  continually- 
interposing  himself  and  saying,  '  Instead  of  looking  at 
the  truth,  my  children,  look  at  me,  and  see  how  skilfully 
I  do  my  work.  I  thought  I  taught  you  admirably  to-day. 
I  hope  you  thought  so  too '  ?  " l 

It  goes  against  the  grain  to  find  fault  with  this 
kindly  criticism.  With  the  moral  side  we  may 
cordially  agree,  but  that  "  colourless  medium " 
cannot  be  passed  unchallenged.  We  may  empty 
ourselves  of  all  pride,  malice,  and  uncharitableness  ; 

1  G.  H.  Palmer,  The  Ideal  Teacher,  p.  26. 


Free  Discipline  291 

we  may  even  subdue  some  of  our  good  qualities  to 
such  a  pitch  as  to  render  them  innocuous  to  our 
pupils,  but  we  simply  cannot  get  rid  of  all  our 
qualities,  and  appear  fair  to  the  front  view,  though 
like  the  Ellewomen  of  Norse  mythology  we  have 
no  backs  and  have  our  insides  scooped  out.  We 
must  be  fair  in  our  presentation  of  the  truth,  but 
it  is  beyond  our  power  to  prevent  our  personality 
from  tinging  whatever  passes  from  our  minds  to 
the  minds  of  our  pupils.  There  is  indeed  a  certain 
danger  that  in  presenting  controversial  matter  we 
may  distort  the  truth  seriously  by  our  very  deter- 
mination to  suppress  our  own  bias.  This  danger  has 
always  been  recognised,  but  now  its  seriousness  is 
increased  by  what  we  have  learnt  about  the  uncon- 
scious. Our  conscious  bias  may  be  in  one  direction, 
our  unconscious  in  another.  The  only  way  out  of 
the  maze  is  by  doing  our  best  to  keep  ourselves  as 
unbiased  as  is  possible  in  our  consciousness,  and 
leave  it  at  that.  All  this,  however,  concerns  the 
subject-matter  of  our  teaching,  and  is  a  little  off 
the  track  of  the  problem  of  control. 

It  is  accordingly  when  we  get  to  what  is  techni- 
cally called  "  free  discipline  "  that  the  real  trouble 
begins.     Even  at  the  command  of  the  emancipa- 
tionists,  we  cannot  give  up  our  "  influence "   in 
school.     The  thing  is  impossible,  even  if  our  wills 
consented.     What,  then,  about  government  ?     Can 
we  hand  it  over  bodily  to  the  pupils  ?     At  the  pnP~7 
posal  to  give  the  pupils  as  a  body  the  complete  I 
control  of  school  and  class,  the  startled  experienced  I 
teacher  of  to-day  can  think  of  nothing  better  to/ 
say  than  "  Bolshevism."     Even  when  the  emancipa- 


292  Free  Discipline 

tionist  goes  on  to  explain  that  the  master  would  still 
be  there  as  an  interested  spectator,  though  in  the 
background  and  merely,  in  the  official  phrase,  "  in 
an  advisory  capacity/'  the  disconcerted  teacher  does 
not  quite  recover  his  balance.  He  is  not  sure 
whether  it  is  possible  that  such  things  can  be 
seriously  proposed  by  people  who  are  apparently 
not  under  restraint.  The  law  of  gravitation  in  the 
school  is  that  the  master  is  the  effective  controller, 
and  nothing  short  of  the  full  recognition  of  that 
law  will  satisfy  the  plain,  practical,  successful  school- 
master. He  shudders  when  he  hears  an  authentic 
tale  of  a  teacher  beginning  his  dealings  with  a  class 
by  proclaiming  that  whatever  any  one  of  the  pupils 
does,  there  will  be  no  punishment,  and  that  each 
one  can  do  what  seems  good  in  his  own  eyes,  without 
fear  of  disagreeable  consequences  from  the  school 
authorities.  He  is  incredulous  when  sober  and 
apparently  sane  men  tell  him  of  the  wonderful 
success  that  has  followed  on  such  anarchic  methods. 
There  is  one  story  in  particular  that  has  a  specially 
fascinating  effect  on  the  practical  schoolmaster 
when  it  is  quoted,  as  it  invariably  is  in  all  discus- 
sions on  free  discipline.  A  certain  bad  boy  when 
faced  with  this  charter  of  liberty  of  action  without 
penal  consequences  showed  his  independence  by 
smashing  a  vase  that  somehow  happened  to  be 
handy.  But  when  the  master  offered  his  watch  as 
the  second  sacrifice  (I  wanted  to  say  gold  watch,  but 
I  must  keep  to  the  text  of  the  story)  "  the  boy 
turned  white,  trembled  from  head  to  foot,  and  said 
he  could  not."  Several  practical  teachers  to  whom 
I    have    mentioned    this    recorded    incident    have 


Free  Discipline  293 

reacted  in  a  precisely  uniform  way.     Each  looked 
startled,  pulled  out  his  watch,  gazed  at  it  anxiously, 
and   replaced   it   in   silent   scepticism.     It   is   not 
necessary  to  call  in  question  the  truth  of  this  story 
that  sets  teachers'   teeth   on   edge.    There  is  no 
doubt  that  Mr.   Homer  Lane,   Mr.  Thomas  Mott 
Osborne,  and  Mr.  Norman  MacMunn  have  done  all 
that  is  claimed  for  them.    The  trouble  is  that  the^, 
supply  of  such  men  is  rather  limited.     This  is  the 
fatal  objection  to  a  great  many  educational  reforms.    I 
I  They  often  work  exceedingly  well  in  the  hands  of  / 
those  who  have  originated  them,  and  the  very  few 
others  who  can  bend  the  same  bow  may  attain  I 
something  like  the  same  success ;    but  the  great 
mass  of  school  work  in  the  country  must  be  carried 
on  by  people  who  have  no  extraordinary  talent,  ss~" 
any  scheme  suggested  for  general  application  must 
be  such  as  can  be  used  by  plain,  everyday  personali- 
ties, inspired  no  doubt  and  aided  by  the  example  of 
the  sprinkling  of  supernormal  teachers  that   the 
profession  will  always  possess. 

Within  what  limits,  then,  is  this  free  discipline  a 
workable  plan  ?  On  the  side  of  mere  teaching  and 
study  we  have  found  that  it  is  both  desirable  and 
possible  to  delegate  a  great  deal  of  responsibility 
to  the  pupil.  The  problem  remains  how  much  of 
this  delegation  is  desirable  and  possible  in  matters 
of  control.  The  natural  off-hand  answer  is  that  a 
class  may  be  allowed  to  conduct  its  own  affairs  so 
long  as  it  behaves  itself,  and  does  reasonable  things. 
The  teacher  is  there  to  see  that  it  does  not  get  off 
the  rails,  and  do  foolish  things.  At  this  point  the 
emancipationists  vigorously  object.     They  say  that 


294  Free  Discipline 

this  is  a  mere  travesty  of  freedom,  and  amounts  to 
no  more  than  an  invitation  to  the  class  to  do  what 
the  teacher  wants,  without  the  teacher  having  the 
trouble  to  tell  them  what  that  is.  The  moment 
pupils  venture  on  an  original  movement  they  are 
pulled  up.  It  is  a  mere  dancing  in  chains.  The 
emancipationists  maintain  that  the  real  value  of 
free  discipline  is  that  the  pupils  have  a  chance  to 
go  wrong  in  their  own  way,  to  make  their  own 
mistakes,  and  to  find  the  way  to  remedy  them  on 
their  own  account. 

But  unless  we  are  to  fall  back  upon  the  intolerable 
conditions  of  Tolstoi's  anarchic  school  at  Yasnaya 
Polyana  there  must  be  some  ultimate  source  of 
authority,  and  no  one  is  more  likely  to  exercise 
that  authority  wisely  than  the  man  or  woman  who 
has  devoted  years  of  preparation  and  experience  to 
the  acquiring  of  skill  in  using  just  such  a  control. 
Let  the  teacher  give  the  pupils  as  much  rope  as  he 
can  without  disaster  to  the  class  as  a  whole,  but  he 
must  retain  in  the  last  resort  the  power  of  inter- 
vention and  veto.  Further,  it  has  to  be  noted  that 
not  all  teachers  have  the  same  span  of  delegated 
authority.  The  amount  of  freedom  accorded  to  the 
class  in  the  way  of  discipline  has  a  definite  relation 
to  the  qualities  of  the  teacher  concerned.  Some 
have  much  greater  power  of  delegation  than  others. 
No  doubt  under  ideal  conditions  we  could  secure 
enough  men  and  women  with  the  widest  span,  and 
the  emancipationists  might  then  carry  their  theory 
to  its  full  limit.  But  as  things  are  we  must  deal 
with  the  staffs  actually  available.  There  is  no 
sense  in  asking  the  man  with  a  c  power  of  control 


Free  Discipline  295 

to  give  the  amount  of  freedom  that  it  is  quite  safe 
for  one  with  an  a  power  to  give. 

Besides,  the  children  are  not  being  prepared  for 
a  world  in  which  they  will  be  allowed  to  live  out 
their  lives  without  restrictions.  They  will  not  only 
experience  in  their  future  the  general  restraint  that 
comes  from  living  in  a  society  at  all,  but  in  almost 
every  case  they  will  have  to  take  account  of  the 
authority  of  some  person  or  persons  placed  over 
them  in  a  position  of  definite  superiority.  It  is 
well,  then,  for  them  to  begin  by  learning  to  recog- 
nise the  authority  of  a  man  or  woman  whose  business 
it  is  to  see  that  the  school  organisation  is  so  arranged 
as  to  lead  to  the  best  and  freest  development  of  the 
pupil's  character  and  personality.  It  is  regrettable 
that  we  teachers  fall  so  far  short  of  what  we  should 
be  in  order  to  discharge  with  perfect  success  the 
heavy  responsibility  laid  upon  us,  but  matters  will 
certainly  not  be  improved  by  making  us  work 
under  conditions  of  discipline  that  take  from  us  the 
chance  of  bringing  out  the  best  that  is  in  us. 


INDEX 


Abortive  knowledge,  240 
Adams,  Henry,  The  Education 

of,  25 

Adamson,  J.  E.,  31  ff.,  286 

Adler,  Alfred,  259,  261 

Advertisers'     possible    educa- 
tional activities,  204 

Aemuli,  148 

American  Army  tests,  71,  76  ff.f 

Anisic  attention,  211 
Apperception-mass,  255 
Application  teachers,  200 
Appreciation  lessons,  141,  225, 

226 
Aristotle,  7 

Arithmetical  scales,  100  ff. 
Arnold,  T.,  283,  286,  290 
Arro\vsmith,tMr.,  22 
Assignment,  160 
Attainments,  75 
Auditoria,  educational  use  of, 

201 
Authority  of  teacher,  277  ff. 
Avebury,  Lord,  49 
Ayres,  L.  P.,  98,  105,  112 


B 

Baden-Powell,  Sir  R.,  284 
Bagehot,  Walter,  116,  123 
Bagley,  W.  C,  153,  207 
Bain,  Alexander,  210 
Baldwin,  J.  M.,  117,  118 
Ballard,  P.  B.,  85-,  89 
Bassett,  Rosa,  178,  179,  181 
Bell,  Andrew,  88 
Beneke,  F.  E.,  254 
Benson,  A.  C,  280 


Binet,  Alfred,  78  ff.,  92 
Bi-polarity   ^     -     y^ 
iiirciwood,  259 
Block  system,  151 
Bloomfield,  Meyer,  54 
Board  Schools,  10 
Boutroux,  Emile,  29,  30,  32 
Boy  Scouts,  216  ff. 
Branford,  B.,  33 
Bravais,  62 
Brooks,  van  Wyck,  1 
Brown,  E.  Elles worth,  287 
Business  man,  demands  of,  34 
Butler,  Samuel,  139 
By-educatioD,  25 


Camp  life,  218 

Campagnac,  Professor,  3 

Capacity,  75 

Celebrations,  141 

Censor,  the,  263-4 

Chapman  and  Rush,  107 

Character,  83,  113 

"Charters,  W.  W.,  232 

Child  Study,  15,  272 

Children,  The  New,  1 

Cholmeley,  F.  R.,  2,  22 

Class,  The  :  as  teaching-unit 
and  organisation-unit,  1 37  ff . ; 
compensation  of  teachers 
of,  144 ;  forces  opposing 
abolition  of,  167  ff.  ;  former 
classification  of ,  146;  future 
status  of,  146  ;  integration 
and  disintegration  of,  130  ; 
leaders  of,  131  ff.  ;  room 
accommodation  for,  189 ; 
size  of,  140. 


297 


298 


Index 


Colourless  medium  theory,  290 
Colvin,  S.  S.,  154 
Comenius,  73 
Commercial  training,  41 
Commonwealth,  The  Little,  22 
Communistic  ideals,  191 
Complex,  255,  260-1,  263,  275 
Composition  scales,  108 
Consciousness  as  fresh-air  cure, 

263 
Conservatism,     21  ;      of     the 

teachers,  167 
Continuous  school  session,  190 
Contrariant  disposition,  288 
Converging  Paths,  3 
Cook,  Caldwell,  18,  203,  205  ff., 

247,  289,  290 
Co-operation  in  study,  174 
Correlation  formula,  62  ff. 
Correlation  of  studies,  236-7 
Courtis,  S.  A.,  100,  108,  112 
Curtis,  Henry  S.,  190,  194 


Dalton  Association,  166,  175 
Dalton   Plan,  4,    14,   46,    148, 
"**  199 
Daltonism,  dangers  of,  177  ff., 

optimism  of,  182 
Davenport,  E.,  52 
Defectives,  78,  90 
Departmental  system,  190 
Dewey,  Evelyn,  164 
Dewey,  John,  17,  171,  244,  283 
Dichotomies,  educational,  54, 

56 
Didactic,  The  Great,  73 
Differential  Partnership  Books, 

150 
"  Disciplinarian,  a  good,"  281 
Discipline,     three    stages    of, 

283  ff. 
Diversion  theory,  2c6 
Docility,  nemesis  of,  221 
Drawing  scales,  1 10,  1 1 1 
Dreams,  264 
Drever,  J.,  268 
Drills,  227 

Drudgery,  179,  212,  216 
Dunlap,  Knight,  249,  259    ' 


Education  :  accidental,  25  ; 
according  to  nature,  13 ; 
Act,  6  ;  a  la  carte,  and  table 
d'hdte,  223  ;  a  liberal,  47  ; 
as  adjustment,  31  ;  Associa- 
tion for  the  advancement  of, 
35,  36  ;  Board  of,  20,  23  ; 
cosmic,  25  ;  innovations  in, 
11;  Ihe  new,  1,  17,  216, 
225,  268 

Education,  Curse  of,  23 

Education,  Joy  of,  4,  23 

Education,  New  Era  in,  4,  23 

Education,  Tragedy  of,  23 

Ego-centricism,  220-1 

Eldridge,  Mr.,  104 

Emancipationism,  287 

Emile,  13 

Ends,  Kantian  Kingdom  of, 
40 

Essays  in  Revolt,  23 

Evans,  E.,  251 

Eve,  H.  W.,  196 

Examination,  74 

Examinations,  external,  19, 
236 


Pact  and  faculty.  243 

Finlay- Johnson,  Miss,  205 

Fisher,  Rev.  George,  95 

Flugel,  J.  C,  249 

Fool  Culture,  23 

Ford,  W.  E.,  2 

Formal  Training,  75       ' 

Freak  schools,  4 

Free  discipline,  282  ;  limits  of, 

293  ff. 
Freeman,  R.  Austin,  7 
Freud,  S.,  252,  260,  264,  268, 

270,  276 
Froebelian  discipline,  282 


Gallery  lessons,  142,  203 
Galton,  Sir  Francis,  82 
Garbage,  the  keeper  of,  217 
Garnett,  Maxwell,  69 


Index 


299 


Gary  :  American  teachers' 
— attitude  towards,  192  ;  Ap- 
plication teachers  at,  200  ; 
Dean  type  of  supervising 
teachers  at,  199 ;  City, 
1 86  ;  General  A  ccount  of, 
193 ;  longer  school  day  at, 
193 ;  scheme,  15 ;  slack- 
ness in  supervision  at,  197  ; 
system,  187  ;  teaching  staff 
at,  194  ;  use  of  auditoria  at, 
201  ;  weakness  in  class- 
work  at,  199 

General  factors,  69 

Geography  scales,  1 1 1 

German  educational  system,  5 

Goddard,  H.  H.,  251 

Goethe,  284 

Good-old-grind,  the,  208 

Government  in  school,  291 

Green,  G.  H.,  251 

Group  mind,  H9__ 

H 

Hahn  Lackey  scale,  11 1 

Hall,  G.  Stanley,  14 

Hall-Quest,  A.  L.,  160 

Hamilton,  116 

Handwriting  scales,  96  ff. 

Hard  Times,  8 

Hargrave,  John,  217-8 

Hartmann,  G.  v.,  254 

Hatfield,  Wilbur,  246 

Hay,  Ian,  182 

Hayward,  F.  H.,  141,  203 

Healy,  W.,  250 

Heraclitus,  2 

Herbart,  1,23,  224,  254  ;    Her- 

bart  and  Freud,  254 
Herbartian  steps,  176 
Hill,  Alexander,  209 
Hillegas,  Milo  B.,  108 
Hoke,  K.  J.,  16 
Holmes,  Edmond,  221 
Home  study,  42  ff. 
Horm6,  258 
■*  Houses,"  165 
How  to  learn,  152  ff. 
How  to  measure,  16 
How-to-study  as  adjective,  159 
Hughes,  Miss  E.  M.,  85  ff. 


Iceberg  metaphor,  255-6 
^Lmitation,  dangers  of,  288 

Impressionists,  the,  286-7 
Individual  psychology,  261 

Individual  study,  160  *^ 

Individuality,  in  ff. 

Information-mongers,  27 

"^j^ryctio" .  iatfigcaL  J6,  17  *"" 

Instrumental  subjects,  44  ff. 
Instruments    in    experiments, 

Ijitegralism,  171 
Integralists,  234 
Intelligence,   67  ff.,   age   limit 

of,  70 
Intelligence  tests,  14  ;  teachers' 

attitude  towards,  71  ff. 
Interest,  209 
IQ,  78,  81,  93  ;    calculation  of, 

81 


Jacks,  L.  P.,  68 

Janus  and  Vesta,  33 

Jeliffe,  249 

Jesuits,  148 

Jones,   W.    Franklin,   29,   33, 

103,  104 
Judgment,  128 
Jung,  C.  G.,  252,  260 

K 

Kant,  31,  38 

Keatinge,  M.  W.,  73,  288 
Kempf,  E.  J.,  262 
Kindergartners,  288 
King,  W.  I.,  64 
Kipling,  R.,  126 
Knowledge,  useful,  241 


Laboratory  Plan,  140,  162,  166 
Labour,  educational  demands 

of,  36  ff.,  58 
Lachaud,  M.,  127 
Lane,  Homer,  22,  293 
Lan  ge-  J  ames-  Sutherland 

theory,  125 
Latin,  12 


300 


Index 


Laurie,  S  S.,  30 

Lavisse,  Ernest,  17 

Lay,  W.,  250 

Le  Bon,  Gustave,  116,  127 

L.C.C.   Education  Committee, 

35.  185 

Lernfreiheit,  163 

Libido,  258 

Lime-light,  love  of,  168,  290 

Littlemen,  203,  206 

Locke,  116,  128 

Logical  conception  of  a  sub- 
ject, 242 

Lubbock,  Sir  John,  45 

Lyttelton,  Edward,  28 


M 


McCall,  W.  A.,  64 
M'Choakumchild,  Mr.,  8 
Macdougall,  116 
McGregor,  A.  Laura,  42,  161, 

173 
MacMunn,  Norman,  22,  147  ff., 

173,  250,  282  ff. 
McMurry,  C.  A.,  238 
McMurry,  F.  M.,  154-5 
Mais,  S.  P.  B.,  28 
Mann,  C.  R.,  235 
Mansbridge,  Albert,  37 
Medical  men  and  teachers,  274 
Mental    Measurement,    Brown 

and  Thomson's,  63 
Messmer,  249 

Methods,  aj   quantitative,  61 
Meumann,  249 
Mill,  J.  S.,  289 
Miller,  Crichton,  251 
Minimum  number  in  collective 

unit,  n8ff. 
Montessori,  Dr.,  136,  138,  149, 

182 
Montessorian    group,   size   of, 

138 

Montessorianism  and  Dalton- 
ism, 164,  180  ;  s'effacer  doc- 
trine in  connection  with, 
287-8 

Moral  tests,  83 

Moseley,  Mr.,  45 

Moore,  E.  C,  29 


Munroe,  J.  P.,  18 
Miinsterberg,  H.,  272 

N 

National  Intelligence  Test,  90 
Nassau     County    Supplement, 

109 
Neglect,  wholesome,  147 
Neill,  A.  S.,  290 
Neo-Herbartians,  208 
New  Ideals,  Conference  on,  22 
New  Republic,  The,  192 
Newton  Composition  scale,  109 
Nisic  attention,  211 
Non-anonymous  group,  129 
Normal  human  being,  270 
Norms,  79,  1 11,  112  ^- 

Nunn,  T.  P.,  91,  140,  172 


Obedience  to  teachers,  reasons 

for,  277  ff. 
O'Brien  Harris,  Mrs.,  164  ff. 
O'Neill,  Mr.,  22 
One-teacher  Schools,  150 
Originals,  231 
Osborne,  T.  M.,  293 
O'Shea,  Professor,  31 
Oversensibility,  276 


Paidocentricism,  14,  15,  246 
Pairwise  classification,  147 
Palmer,  G.  H.,  208,  290 
Parkhurst,  Helen,  159,  162 
Partnership,  method  of,  173 
Pearson,  Karl,  62 
Pedanalysis,  272 
Perse  School,  the,  206 
Personality,  H3ff.  ;  of  teacher, 

280,  283'  285,  291 
Pfister,  Oskar,  249,  251,  257, 

267,  271 
Phlebotomists,  283 
Pitfalls,  229 
Place,  Francis,  132 
Plato,  7 

Piatt,  William,  23,  207,  208 
Power  of  control,  280  ff. 


Index 


301 


Projectors,  237,  240,  242,  244 

Project  method  defined,  232  ; 
project  series,  246 

Psycho-analysis,  teachers' atti- 
tude towards,  270 ;  versus 
biography,  266 

Psychological    attitude,    272 ; 

"""expert,  274 ;  method,  ob- 
jections to,  244 ;  practic- 
ability of,  248 

psychology,  individual,    261  ; 

the  new,  252 

R 

R's,  the  three,  44,  45,  172 

Radice,  Mrs.,  1 

Random,    the,    in    teaching, 

241  ff. 
Reading  tests,  105  ff. 
Record,  after-school,  84 
Reid,  116 

Repression,  257,  260 
Resistance,  264 
Risumi  and  review,  160 
Reynolds,  Stephen,  37 
Rice,  J.  M.,  95,  99,  108 
Rivers,  W.  H.  R.,  260 
Rousseau,  13,  215 
Rugg,  H.  O.,  64 
Rusk,  R.  R.,  82,  275 
Ruskin  College,  37 
Russell,  W.  F.,  246 


Scales,  93  ff. 
Schiller,  74 

Schneider,  Herman,  54 
Scholarship  tests,  88 
School  and  Society,  171 
Scottish  Parish  Schools,  139 
Self-education,  157 
Selfishness,  220 
Separate  seat  for  each  pupil, 

188 
Sex  in  Freudianism,  259 
Shakespeare,  126 
Silent-reading  tests,  106  ff. 
Sinclair,  S.  B.,  289 
Size  of  Montessorian  teaching 

group,  138 


Snedden,  David,  25,  52 
Social  Decay  and  Degeneration, 

Socialising,   17,   172,  245 ;    at 
Gary,  199 

Socius,  117,  118 

Spearman,    C.     E.,    62 ;     his 
"  footrule,"  63,  69 

Specialists    versus    projectors 
239,  240 

Spelling  tests,  103  ff. 

Spencer,  F.,  209 

Spencer,  Herbert,  24,  27,  34 

Standards,  subjective,  60  ;  ob- 
jective, 61 

Starch  Daniel,   104,  106,  107, 

155,  158.  159 
Steffens'  Law,  153 
Stekel,  Wilhelm,  219,  270,  276 
Stevenson,     J.     A.,     231    ff., 

244-5-6 
Stewart,  116 
Stone-and-lime   in   education, 

185 
Stout,  G.  F.,  85,  252 
Stow,  David,   122,    142,    203, 

214 
Streatham  Secondary  County 

School,  176 
Studying   and   learning,    con- 
trast between,  155 
Study  supervised,  15,  160,  161 
Subject  matter,  13 
Suppression,  257,  260 
Swift,  E.  J.,  140,  159,  166 
Sympathy,  124  ;    of  numbers, 

122,  170 


Tarde,  Gabriel,  116,  123 
Teacher  versus  class-leader,  133 
Teachers  and  architecture,  186 
Teaching,    the    New,    13,    14, 

214.  21.5 
Temple,  Dr.,  282-3 
Terman,  L.  M.,  79,  85,  90 
Test  v.  scale,  93 
Testament,  from  Old  to  New, 

285 
Text-books,  two  types  of,  182  ; 

in  relation  to  Daltonism,  183 


302 


Index 


Thorndike,  E.  L.,  64,  95,  96, 

99.  no 
Thring,  Edward,  185,  283,  286, 

290 
Titan  metaphor,  the,  256-7 
Titchener,  E.  B.,  123 
Tolstoi,  294 

Training  College,  8,  9,  280 
Tridon,  A.,  262 
Tri-polarity,  32 
Trotter,  116 


U 

Uselessness,  the  cult  of,  48 


Vaney,  M.,  92 
Verbs  of  teaching,  12 
Virtues,  the  rebel,  37 
^ocationalism,     50  ff.  ;      ten- 
»    dencial,  56  ff. 


W 

Watts,  Frank,  76 
Webb,  E.,  69 
Weeks,  R.  M.,  17,  172 
Wells,  M.  E„  246  ff. 
Where  Education  Fails,  23 
Whipple,  G.  M.,  159 
Willing  Composition  scale,  109 
Wilson,  G.  M.,  16,  10 1 
Wilson  and  Hoke,  1 1 1 
Wirt,  William  A.,  188  ff. 
Witmer,  L.,  252 
Wood,  Walter,  206 
Woodworth,  R.  S.,  253 
Woody,  Clifford,  102 
Work  "and  play,  207 
Work-play-study  schools,  191 
Workers'    Educational    Asso- 
ciation, 37 
World,  the  real,  46 


Young,  Ernest,  4,  5,  23 


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